Putting people together in one office changes nothing. What truly matters is a shared vision, carried by both politicians and the administration, and the courage to see a merger as an investment rather than a budgetary instrument.
Wallonia is on the eve of a reform wave that has occupied Flanders for more than a decade. The Walloon Government is working on the integration of CPASs and municipalities, a second wave of voluntary municipal mergers is being financially encouraged towards 2030, and in the care and housing sectors, the consolidation movement is already well underway. The temptation is strong to frame all this primarily as a savings exercise. That would be a historic mistake.
In April, at Möbius Business Redesign, we brought together around a hundred executives and policymakers around one question: how do you turn a merger into a success story? The answers from academics and practitioners were remarkably aligned and directly relevant to every Walloon authority currently considering a merger.
An organisational chart is not an organisation
The most persistent illusion is also the most dangerous: if we place the right people in the right boxes, the rest will follow automatically. Research shows that seven out of ten mergers in the private sector fail in terms of value creation. Not because the figures were wrong, but because the integration never moved beyond the legal layer.
In the recent Flemish municipal mergers, we see the same pattern recurring time and again: the real lever is not the organisational chart, but what lies behind it. A new job classification framework reconciling different pay structures. A staffing plan built on objective analysis rather than political bargaining. And perhaps most importantly, a deliberate strategy to actively break through the “us versus them” dynamic between the former entities.
In Flemish social housing, where several organisations with different cultures and ways of working had to merge into a single housing corporation, the same lesson emerged: do not wait to put the difficult issues on the table. Resolve these matters early in the process and use them as signposts for the direction ahead.
In the short term, an investment rather than a saving
This is where the political temptation is strongest. Mergers are often launched against a backdrop of budgetary pressure, and promises of economies of scale are therefore attractive. Yet the first years after a merger actually demand more from an organisation: harmonising IT systems, revising procedures, investing in change management, supporting staff. Efficiency gains only come afterwards, and only when there is a long-term vision behind them that goes beyond savings alone.
Professor Lieven Janssens argues in his future vision for Flemish domestic governance for a sober starting point: scaling up is neither a goal in itself nor a miracle cure. It is a necessary, but insufficient, condition for better public services. The municipalities now reaping the benefits of their merger are those that linked their increase in scale to an explicit ambition: better services, greater policy capacity, stronger strategic capability. Those that saw savings as the sole horizon often remain stuck in transition fatigue.
For Wallonia, the message is twofold. Yes, integrating CPASs and municipalities can lead to efficiency gains. But if that story cannot be connected to a positive ambition — more qualitative social policy, a more integrated approach to vulnerability, better accessibility for citizens — support will quickly erode.
Vision: a shared responsibility between politics and administration
Successful mergers have a clear vision that is articulated politically before the merger and implemented administratively afterwards. When politicians merely impose a framework and leave the implementation entirely to the administration, a vacuum emerges that later leads to tensions. Conversely, when the administration builds the trajectory without political backing, every difficult decision collides with short-term considerations.
Dr Aurélie Tibbaut put it sharply during our event: every restructuring reflects implicit choices — what are we optimising, what are we prioritising, and for whom? Those choices deserve to be made explicit, and that is above all a political responsibility.
The Walloon Government has a genuine opportunity here: by formulating a clear vision now, before the second wave of voluntary mergers, for the future of local governance, it can provide local authorities with a compass. Without that compass, every merger risks becoming a negotiation between mayors rather than a building block for a stronger governance landscape.
The “how” matters at least as much as the “what”
A fourth lesson deserves attention because it is too often forgotten in public debate. Mergers succeed or fail on tone and culture, not on figures.
In the Flemish residential care sector, we saw how public care providers were only truly able to merge once they dared to acknowledge that they operated according to different logics: one focused on efficiency, the other on proximity and accessibility. Only once those differences became discussable could a shared direction emerge.
In practice, this means dedicated programme management, room for employees’ concerns, and managers who are supported as the first “translators” of change. That may sound soft, but it is extremely demanding work — and it determines whether, six years later, a merger is still alive or has disappeared into organisational fatigue.
A Walloon opportunity
Wallonia has an advantage that Flanders did not: it can learn from a decade of Flemish practice, with both its successes and its pitfalls. That does not mean the Flemish model should simply be copied wholesale — the Walloon reality is different, and the Fédération des CPAS has rightly raised questions about its automatic transferability.
But the underlying lessons are universal: no merger without vision, no vision without political courage, and no success without attention to culture, people and leadership.
The key question for Walloon local authorities is not whether there will be more mergers. The question is how they will be carried out. And on that question, on both sides of the language border, the answer is the same: by making today the crucial choices that tomorrow can no longer wait.
Laura Vanhee is Associate Partner at Möbius Business Redesign.
Delphine Morel de Westgaver is Senior Management Consultant at Möbius Business Redesign.
Möbius Business Redesign organised the event “Van fusie tot succesverhaal / Comment réussir une fusion?” on 22 April 2026, featuring keynotes by Professor Lieven Janssens and Dr Aurélie Tibbaut.
