The rise in interest rates on the secondary markets is a general trend and is related to the announcement by the European Central Bank (ECB) that it is planning further rate hikes as inflation remains above its target of 2 percent for a long time to come.
Higher long-term interest rates make borrowing more expensive, especially home loans, and are also bad news for the treasury if the government has to raise money on the financial markets in the future.
At the beginning of this month, the Belgian ten-year interest rate had fallen to 2.3 percent, the lowest point in months. But after the most recent meeting of the ECB, things went uphill again, the 3 percent mark was reached just before Christmas.
Interest rates are rising very fast. It was not until March of this year that the Belgian ten-year interest rate passed the 1 percent mark. At the end of 2020, the same interest rate was even negative for some time, with an all-time low of -0.440 percent in November of that year.