Belgium Holds 16th Place Worldwide as Institutional Fragmentation Limits Public-Service Value

Wealth of Nations Index 2026

Belgium holds 16th place worldwide in the Wealth of Nations Index 2026, with its overall position unchanged from the previous edition. The result points to a familiar Belgian paradox: a relatively strong private economy is doing more of the work, while the public sector delivers less value than the country’s income level would suggest.

Full results and the interactive ranking are available at: wni.wei.org.pl

Author: Szilárd Szélpál

The Wealth of Nations Index (WNI), now in its sixth edition, is the Warsaw Enterprise Institute’s alternative to GDP. This year’s edition was prepared in cooperation with 20 think tanks from across the world and covers 40 economies from different regions of the globe, mainly members of the European Union and the OECD, as well as Ukraine. Unlike GDP, which treats all spending as equally valuable, the WNI takes a more demanding approach. It compares the size of the private economy with a separate assessment of how much value citizens receive from the state across seven areas: defence, internal security, infrastructure, the environment, healthcare, schooling and higher education.

Belgium’s position remains stable, but the underlying picture is mixed. Citizens’ prosperity continues to outpace the value delivered by public services. Strong universities and solid schooling results are offset by weak defence performance, modest internal security outcomes and only moderate healthcare results. These weaknesses reflect Belgium’s highly fragmented institutional structure, which often makes policy delivery slower and less coherent than the country’s income level would warrant.

Key takeaways

• Belgium ranks 16th out of 40 economies, unchanged from the previous edition.
• Higher education remains a clear strength.
• Defence is Belgium’s most visible weakness.
• The private economy performs better than the headline ranking suggests.
• Institutional fragmentation continues to limit public-policy delivery.

Further information

The broader international picture is also concerning. In most of the countries surveyed — 27 out of 40 — citizens received less value for their public money in 2026 than they did a decade earlier. Public budgets expanded, but results did not keep pace.

The decline became more visible after the pandemic. Public-spending quality had broadly improved up to 2021, but has since gone into reverse across much of the sample. At the same time, private-sector growth has roughly halved and has turned negative in more than a dozen economies.

At the top of the ranking, the United States, Norway and Switzerland again set the pace, combining large private economies with broadly capable states. The strongest momentum, however, comes from catching-up economies in Central and Eastern Europe, especially Romania, followed by Croatia, Bulgaria and Greece.

Poland illustrates a similar paradox. Its economy has slowed noticeably while the public sector has continued to expand. Analysts point to several causes, including legal instability, the growing burden on the bureaucratic apparatus and deregulation efforts that have not gone far enough. They also highlight an increasingly complex and unpredictable tax system, marked by sectoral levies and excise-duty changes introduced with little warning.

For expert commentary or to arrange an interview about the Wealth of Nations Index 2026, journalists are invited to contact the Warsaw Enterprise Institute. Its analysts are available to discuss the findings in detail.

Cover photo: CEA Magazine. Edited with AI assistance using ChatGPT

Support independent analysis and journalism at CEA Magazine: https://centraleuropeanaffairs.com/donation

For more insights on Central European political risk, EU institutional developments, and transatlantic relations, follow CEA Magazine and the CEA Talk podcast.