Proposition 50K0296

Projet de loi portant des dispositions fiscales et diverses.

General information ¶

Submitted by

Groen Open Vld Vooruit PS | SP Ecolo MR Verhofstadt Ⅰ

Submission date

Nov. 30, 1999

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

VAT tax relief direct tax indirect tax naturalisation public sector postal and telecommunications services

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Discussion ¶

Dec. 15, 1999 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, I note that the Government is represented by Minister Aelvoet. There is another important minister involved in this project. I assume that Mr. Gabriels, Minister of Agriculture, will also join our work. I do not discourage him and suggest that at least one attempt be made to involve him in the discussion as well.

Mr Brouns, your colleagues from the Conference of Presidents know that Mr Gabriels’ absence was already announced two to three months ago. I do not know when he will be absent.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, from the beginning, allow me to remind in the preamble that the report that is presented to you today was drafted by Mrs. Schauvliege and myself. We divided it into two parts: I will deal with the general exhibition and the general discussion while my colleague will present to you the discussion of the articles, the proposed amendments as well as the opinions of the Economic Committee and the recommendations of the Dioxine Committee. If you allow it, Mr. Speaker, I will conclude with the position of the Socialist Group and then develop our remarks and our priorities. Our committee therefore examined the present bill for which the government requested the urgency, as well as the attached proposal of Mr. Brouns, during its meetings on 16, 23 and 26 November and 7 and 9 December. Following a procedural vote, the Minister, in her introductory presentation, recalled that the government agreement provides for the creation of a Federal Food Safety Agency which will be responsible, on the one hand, for the establishment of a unified control system and, on the other hand, for the management of risks in food production. Long before the dioxin crisis, the Meat Fraud Monitoring Committee and various audits had already called for improved controls. Among the deficiencies mentioned are the scattering of control skills and tasks as well as the lack of political accountability, a lack of clear definition of control services competences, poor communication, a lack of coordination with the sectors concerned both for production and for consumption. Furthermore, the Belgian authorities do not have a crisis management system capable of addressing these problems. Also, based on the experience of the current crisis, it appears that certain specific tasks should be entrusted to the agency. But the integration of all the inspection services concerned will not be done in one day and negotiations will still be needed for the integration of the different staff statutes. The Government has explicitly decided to integrate all inspection services within the Agency: the General Administration for the Quality of Raw Materials and the Plant Sector (DG4), the General Administration for the Health of Animals and the Quality of Animal Products (DG5), the General Food Inspection (IGDA), the Institute of Veterinary Expertise (IEV) and the Pharmacy Inspection (IPH). The draft law provides for the creation of two opinion bodies within the agency. The first is made up of representatives from the various sectors concerned such as consumers, producers, etc. The second is a scientific advisory body composed of national and international experts. The bill therefore aims to put an end to the splitting and overlapping of control powers between different departments that reject each other’s responsibilities. The consolidation of all competences will be under the responsibility of the Minister of Public Health. With this choice, the government wants to show that by guaranteeing the quality of food, it gives full priority to the health of consumers. The Minister did not dispute that the present draft is a framework law and that a large delegation of power is requested to Parliament but the urgency justifies such a procedure. by Mr. Brouns then gave the introductory exposition of his attached proposal. It takes into account three elements: the recommendations of the Monitoring Committee on Fraud in the Meat Sector, the guidance note of the Minister of Agriculture and the European Union Green Paper. Brouns advocates for a three-level control system: - self-control, i.e. a own surveillance system; - Food Inspection, i.e. a versatile and multidisciplinary body responsible for the entire food chain; - and finally a Federal Food Safety Agency that would monitor the food chain from the sole angle of public health. The bill describes the agency’s tasks and therefore calls for an integrated and multidisciplinary inspection of the food chain by merging all relevant control services. In the general discussion, Mr. Denis insisted on the need for a quick review of the project and to wait for the first conclusions of the dioxin investigation committee before taking the royal execution orders. He also drew the attention of the Minister on the importance of the choice of the administrator and the deputy general administrator, on the effectiveness of some already existing services, on the preservation of the socio-economic fabric of SMEs and on the difficulties of self-control. by Mr. Bultinck denounced the fact that the government wants to force discussion of the project and that food security has become an electoral theme. He expressed his support for a transfer of all public health-related competences to communities, in a European context. The speaker also regretted that there is no evidence that the planned reunification will guarantee a better functioning. by Mr. Brouns, on the other hand, reviewed the content of the project and made a number of observations. These concerned the delegation of powers (special powers, framework law and ordinary authorisation law). The speaker then commented extensively on the findings and recommendations of the fraud in the meat sector committee which he presided over. for Mr. The Government has given very few answers to the Commission’s findings. He recalled Professor Bouckaert’s contribution to the conclusions of this committee, the need for an effective traceability policy and the comments of the Price-Waterhouse-Coopers audit. In this regard, I refer to my written report. He subsequently raised the questions still pending in the bill (personnel rights, mission officers (CDM), the competence of the Ministry of Agriculture and the budget neutrality imposed on the Agency). For my part, I stressed that consumers are looking forward to the creation of this agency. I stigmatized the mechanical attitude of some officials, the accumulation of certain weaknesses in our control system, the lack of communication between the public services which had the effect of letting economic interests develop in total freedom. The weight of a whole system and the influence of certain lobbies also played an obvious role in the crisis. I therefore also advocated for a strict separation of the control activities assigned to the Agency and the normative function left to the administration and the policy. by Mr. Paque disagreed with the project currently under consideration while admitting the need for an effective structure for consumer food security. He stressed that the draft reflects a lack of respect for parliamentary work, that Agriculture should have been more involved in the analysis of the bill, that the objectives must take into account the recommendations of the Brouns committee and that the agency’s missions are not sufficiently organized. According to M. The Agency must have a normative role, be equipped with multidisciplinary scientific competence, fulfill a role of control control and be homogeneous compared to other European agencies. Finally, according to him, the personal issue requires further clarification. Ms. De Meyer endorses the fact that all services that will be grouped within the agency will be placed under the responsibility of a single minister. It also welcomes the fact that all actors involved in the food chain will be represented in the Advisory Committee. This committee shall, in its composition, respect a balance between the representatives of consumers and those of the industry. She also hopes that the controls can be carried out in full transparency. Information should be disseminated in the widest possible way. Consumers are entitled to this because the problems were partly caused by a lack of communication. Mrs Dardenne considers that the presence of economic interests has biased the controls. We must now maintain a fair balance between the economy and public health. It considers that incompatibilities in the head of officials and scientists who will work for the Agency should be clarified. The investigation committee has already highlighted the need to provide for precise control of raw materials. This should be a priori control. Self-control, for her, will only be effective under two conditions: to avoid collusion of interests through the establishment of a code of good conduct and to provide specifications of precise charges that are also the subject of controls. It also calls for quick, but reasonable, deadlines for the establishment of the Agency. Article 13, which provides that royal executive decrees must be confirmed by the legislator, provides a sufficient guarantee in this regard. Consumer representative organisations also play a crucial role, although we heard little of them. Finally, it is necessary to question the problem of livestock feed and expand the reflection on the type of agriculture that is best suited. by Mr. Brouns was concerned about the fate of the DG4 and DG5 services of the Ministry of Agriculture. It should be considered to what extent DG4 and DG5 can be integrated into the merger or integration of services. Ms Avontroodt said that the presence of scientists will add value to the committee. The speaker considered that it is absolutely necessary to avoid any collusion of interests within the future agency. The authorities should have as their primary task the control over control. The task of on-the-spot checks should be entrusted to accredited external bodies that would work according to imposed schemes. Mrs Avontroodt insisted that the Minister should take into account the recommendations of the dioxin investigation committee when drafting the enforcement orders. Van de Casteele believed that the recommendations of the fraud undercommittee in the meat sector have been gradually sweetened. He is surprised by the current government. The draft law is actually a draft of special powers. Questions are raised on the agency’s opinion competence, on the staff framework, on the distribution of competences. The regulatory competence should be entirely at the European level. The speaker pledges for a system that promotes self-control in the sector. In the case of medicines, the question arises of the competences transferred to the agency by the Pharmaceutical Inspection. Questions remain on the budgetary level, as well as on cumulations, advisory bodies, police powers, mission officers, staff mobility, control of external services, harmonisation of current legislation, politization of recruitment, public laboratories and bilingualism of the delegated administrator. Ms Alvoet clarified in her responses that the government did not work in the vacuum. All initiatives taken previously contributed to the genesis of the project under consideration. We must send a strong signal and put into action a process of definitive and irreversible change. All information from the dioxin commission will be taken into account. The criticism that the project under review is filled with a veil of imprecision is not justified. The five control bodies will be grouped under a common denominator to monitor, under the supervision of the Minister of Public Health, the food chain and food quality through controls from the source to the consumer. It is understood that the regulation does not belong to the federal agency but rather to the Department of Public Health. It is not healthy, in fact, that the regulation and control of its observance fall under one and the same authority. The Agency will not be an extension of the existing Institute of Veterinary Expertise. This is the Danish model that most resembles the model in Belgium. This is not a huge agency. Food security must be based primarily on the controls carried out by the sector itself. All measures will be taken to ensure that the food safety authorities work with the greatest transparency and ensure that the information collected is systematically communicated to the public and the relevant sectors. Analysis and risk management are included in the competence of the Scientific Committee. The Advisory Committee is a body in which all interests are represented (consumers, producers and federal and regional services). The Minister also intends to retain, as far as possible, the staff involved in the reorganization. The independence of the members of the Agency is guaranteed by Article 6, §6. They may not have any interest in any institution or undertaking within the competence of the Agency. The creation of the agency is budget-neutral, but the new structure is likely to generate costs that cannot be predicted today. In addition, the traceability system must be amplified. The two directions of the Ministry of Agriculture – DG4 and DG5 – have themselves requested to be transferred in bloc to the agency. But only the tasks aimed at protecting public health should be transferred to the Ministry of Public Health. In conclusion, the Minister again answered several specific questions posed by various speakers. I also refer to the written report for these particular questions and the answers provided by Ms Aelvoet. Here is, Mr. Speaker, for the development of the part of the report that meant me. Before I give the floor to Ms. Schauvliege for the opinions given by the Agriculture Committee, the first recommendations that we received from the dioxin commission as well as the analysis of the articles of the bill, allow me, in order not to aggravate the debate, to formulate here the position of my group on this important bill. As I have already had the opportunity to mention it in the committee, our group is ⁇ pleased with the speed with which the government has submitted this important project. Rapid examination of the text but without any hurry, so all responsible parliamentary groups seriously considered the various arguments put forward by the Minister. We all know here how much consumers were looking forward to the creation of this Federal Food Safety Agency. When the first symptoms of poisoning appeared in industrial ponds and chickens, several officials contented themselves with doing their work mechanically, forgetting that they were part of the long, ever more complex chain of the agro-food chain. The accumulation of certain weaknesses has left the general impression of enormous carelessness, or even irresponsibility, in the face of the theoretical imperative of consumer health protection. And this lack of communication between public services has had the effect of allowing economic interests to develop in total freedom. Lack of communication between Agriculture and Public Health but also lack of internal communication within the departments themselves where there are few formal information procedures, all being left to the individual’s judgment. In this little game of irresponsibility, everyone was able to shrink behind the limited competence that the law attributed to him or before the reality of the field and its contingencies. What, in any case, seems obvious and has been demonstrated repeatedly – I think, for example, the multiple audits carried out within the IEV or the recommendations of the fraud subcommittee in the meat sector – are the shortcomings of our control system. Individual shortcomings do not explain everything. Some political inertia, the weight of a whole system and some lobbies have also played an obvious role in this crisis. The main teaching is of course that the mission of ensuring food security depends on too many administrative services emanating for some from the Minister of Public Health - the IEV, the IGDA, the Pharmaceutical Inspection - and others from the Minister of Agriculture - General Administration of the Quality of Raw Materials and the Plant Sector, called DG4, and General Administration of Animal Health and the Quality of Animal Products, called DG5. Thus, the present project weighs all its weight in symbolic matters since the future Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain should prevent future crises such as those of dioxin. Certainly, different perspectives have emerged throughout our discussions. Some wanted to develop a Danish-light agency, others advocated for an agency responsible for the determination of agro-food standards, others still wanted an integrated agency that ensures both standards and field controls. But ultimately, common sense has prevailed in many areas. In addition, our party had pledged, from the beginning, for a strict separation of these different missions. The Agency will pursue a single objective: the control of food safety and quality. Things are now clear about this and we welcome it. We also welcome the government’s willingness to integrate and coordinate control of the food chain into a single structure dependent on the Minister of Public Health. The Belgian project echoes other initiatives taken in France, Denmark, England or the Netherlands. by Mr. Prodi has already voted in favour of a European Food Safety Agency, but the agency should not be compared to the Food and Drug Administration, which brings together a multitude of stakeholders, which promotes influence games and diverse rivalries. On the contrary, we all want to have a coherent tool grouped together in one and the same organization. Because if the dioxin crisis has had so many negative repercussions, it is not just for political reasons. It came after the enormous waste of the crazy cow crisis, that of the meat with hormones and antibiotics, that of the vegetables loaded with residues of pesticides or nitrates, etc. The world of producers – farmers and livestock farmers at the forefront – has thus found itself plunged in a more or less virulent manner by excess consumers. Of course, it would be unfair, however, to scream haro on the whole agro-industrial chain. The continuous progress in bacteriological control and in the control of cold chains deserves to be highlighted. In the face of the fragmentation of skills, the integration and coordination of the control of the food chain into a single structure was therefore obviously necessary. In view of its powers, the Agency will play a key role in food security, but the two committees set up to complement the structure will also play a leading role in this regard. The advisory committee will reflect the different trends or reactions of society to food issues. For its part, the scientific counsel will help feed the reflection on the new developments in the food sector. We are pleased that this committee will be open to Belgian and international experts. It is crucial, in fact, to be able to benefit from the initiatives that are taken at the international level. Furthermore, the new Article 9, which provides for the establishment of a permanent contact point with the agency where the consumer can obtain objective information and submit individual complaints regarding the quality and safety of foods, now gives us all the guarantees regarding future implementation decisions of this bill. Other important guarantees are also presented to us in the face of the comments made against this framework law. The amendment I submitted to Mr. Denis and other colleagues in relation to conflicts of interest in article 6,§6 is also an additional pledge for the independence of the agency's staff. Of course, many questions are still pending – I would like in particular that the Minister responds to the problem of the pharmacy inspection – but this project, by its very nature, cannot currently provide us with all the precise answers requested by several speakers. The Minister has clearly responded to several objections and the text, as amended, brings as many locks as possible to reassure us. The new Article 14 requiring the legislator to confirm future enforcement orders is, for the Parliament, the key to all these guarantees. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, in conclusion, the Socialist Group will therefore provide all its support to this bill so that the preventive role of the agency and the integration of the various services of Public Health and Agriculture now fully serve the health goals we have assigned to ourselves so that a crisis of the magnitude of that of dioxin will never be repeated again, and this for the greatest good of all consumers.

I would like to explain my request. Collega Brouns has just requested that at least the competent minister, who is very closely involved in this matter, would be present at the discussion of this bill. Minister Gabriels, who himself in long interviews says he does not want his department to be dismantled, is not present here. We request that the Minister be present, in accordance with Article 38bis of the Rules of Procedure and Article 100 of the Constitution. I would like it to be voted on. If we have more than eight members, I ask for a nominal vote. Mr. Speaker, you say that this can only be done after the reporters have issued a report. The Rules of Procedure say nothing about this.

That is right.

I came to you before the first reporter came to speak. You asked me to practice patience. I did that.

According to the Rules of Procedure, the reporters always speak on behalf of the committee. Then the debate begins. Secondly, you delivered me a letter at 16.15 a.m. in which you request, on the basis of Article 38bis, the presence of the Minister of Agriculture for these debates. The Minister wrote to me that he would be absent from 5 to 15 December.

He even added that this was partly also for private reasons.

That’s not in the letter, but I think I understood it. Two weeks ago I notified the Conference of Presidents of this letter. The report of the committee that discussed the matter shows that the meetings were held on 16 and 23 November and on 7, 9 and 10 December. Mrs Aelvoet, I suspect that the last three meetings took place without Mr Gabriels.

Your information is incomplete. There was also an opinion issued by the Committee on Agriculture and Agriculture, in which the Minister of Agriculture was present. That is one more reason to promote his presence here.

Mr. Tante, can I continue my presentation? The matter was referred to the committee for advice. If my memory is good, she met on 7 December, after a plenary session. That was planned because the minister left, the same evening or the next day. I have obtained intelligence and learned that the minister has landed and will be here at 18:00. I have conceived the plan to prosecute the Minister himself, because I find your request relevant. Article 38, §4 of the Rules of Procedure provides in respect of the claim you have submitted, in no consequence. The only consequence that could be given would be that in a second question you request the suspension or the delay of the debates. I can, if necessary, make a decision to sit down and get up.

I have requested a nominal vote.

I agree that you advance the presence of the Minister of Agriculture. In my view, your request is correct.

My request only makes sense if it has an effect.

I accept your request. I did what was necessary so that Minister Gabriels would be here around 18:00. The second possibility is that you ask for a suspension of work up to 18 hours. Soons Bon Prince. Here I must then refer to Article 38, 4° and I quote: Is the Chairman of the opinion that a motion to challenge You have submitted another motion, Mr. Tant. I agree with your question. The House requires the presence of Minister Gabriels. We need more voters.

No, Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, but under the Rules of Procedure it is my full right to request the presence of the Minister.

On that point I agree with you.

Mr. Speaker, I demand the presence of the Minister and whether you agree with it or not, I ask that the Chamber should decide on this by a general vote. It is my right to make such a request.

Will the members of the Chamber agree to demand the presence of Minister Gabriels? If there is unanimity...

I request a unanimous vote. You cannot bypass that.

But where is the problem if the Chamber agrees to this?

If the nominal vote is requested, there must be a nominal vote.

But Mr. Tant, if the members of the Chamber agree with your request, then there should not be a nominal vote?

Mr. Speaker, I am asking for a nominal vote, and you cannot refuse me to do so.

Mr. Tante, if I determine that everyone agrees with it? I will formally ask the question: la Chambre demande-telle la convocation du ministre? Does the House agree that the presence of Minister Gabriels is promoted? I assert unanimity.

We all agree, including Mr. Tant and Brouns, members of the dioxin commission, to say that the agency that will be created by this bill, will be subject to the authority of the Minister of Public Health. We have asked for the advice of the Minister of Agriculture and the Middle Class, but if we have to make all the ministers involved in this future agency intervene here, we must also require the presence of the Minister of Budget as well as that of the Ministers of Finance and Interior, because at certain times, the agency will have to resort to the services of the gendarmerie. We cannot accept to comply with the request of Mr. We cannot ask for the presence of the Minister of Agriculture. The presence of the Minister of Health is sufficient.

If the Chamber is not unanimous to require the presence of M. Gabriels, je dois donner suite à la demande de M. by Tante. L'Assemblée est-elle unanime à demander la présence de M. The Gabriels? There is only uncertainty about how it should be decided. This is the subject of Rule 46 of the Rules of Procedure, which we referred to last week. Except in cases where the present Rules of Procedure explicitly prescribes a vote by sitting and standing up, however, a nominal vote is passed when the request comes from a member and is supported by at least eight members. There can therefore be no doubt, Mr. Tante, that when there is unanimity, one does not vote. Let me first determine whether there is unanimity to advance Mr. Gabriels.

I also request the presence of Mr. by Gabriels.

I do not assert unanimity. I therefore let the Chamber decide on the claim of the presence of Mr. Gabriels. According to the previous case-law of Mr Defraigne, the decision is made at the time of the vote. I just want to know if Mr. Gabriels’ presence is sufficient at 18:00.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Minister to be present for the discussion of this bill and not for anything else. The meeting will be suspended at 16.48. The session is suspended at 16.48 hours. The meeting will be resumed at 18.04 hours. - The session is resumed at 18.04 hours.

After the suspension, the vote must be repeated.

Indeed indeed .

In order to work seriously, you need to work long. And I personally find that taking fifteen days of holidays at Christmas and New Year is too much. We should decide to work between Christmas and New Year, in committees and in plenary sessions. All those who have booked holidays during this period should contact their tour operators to cancel them.

I suggest suspending the session until 20:00.

The Justice Committee is always working. She will use the suspension to continue her work. The meeting will be suspended at 18.12. - The session is suspended at 18.12 hours. The meeting will be resumed at 20.02 a.m. - The session is resumed at 20.02 hours.

Mr. President, Mrs. Minister, Mr. Minister, colleagues, who could have hoped that there would be so much interest in this bill. We once had to deal with the general discussion of more important matters with much fewer people. I would like to welcome the initiative of Mr. Tante. He has at least ensured that there is sufficient interest. We now have both ministers in our midst to discuss these two drafts. It can be voted on tomorrow. Before we go to the vote, however, some concerns must be formulated. According to the memorandum of explanation of this design, the past has repeatedly demonstrated that a lack of food safety and quality can have serious consequences, both on the human and economic level. According to the government, a comprehensive and integrated control of the entire food chain is therefore urgently needed. To the understanding and conviction that any health risk or any irregularity in the food chain must be immediately detected, identified and addressed, the CVP group came back in 1997. The crackdown by a number of Belgian companies in the trade of British beef was the reason for me to appeal to the Commission for Public Health. The creation of the Meat Fraud Commission was the result of that interpellation. This committee was established in October 1997 and completed its work in July 1998. The purpose of this follow-up committee was to examine the functioning of the IVK in the context of the identified meat fraud and to formulate structural measures to thoroughly restructure this institute. Following the work of the committee, I already announced, on behalf of the CVP Group, a political position creating a new framework for all public authorities carrying out controls in the food chain, not only in the meat sector. In that political position in May 1998, I already advocated the establishment of a federal agency for food safety. The recommendations of the IVK committee were the result of a difficultly achieved compromise. However, on the basis of the identified dysfunctions as Chairman of the Committee, I had formulated a number of clear recommendations. Principles such as the independence and separation of the control services from the normative bodies and the merger of all inspection services were at the forefront of this. The final text only called for cooperation between the inspection services. It was therefore intended to preserve the existing fragmented state. At that time, the CVP group had only a need to comply with the proposal. In response, he submitted his own bill. I would like to briefly recall this proposal. It originated in the in-depth analysis made by the then IVK committee. The bill follows the same line and the conclusions of that conscious IVK committee, as well as the conclusions of the external audit and the European Commission’s Green Book on the general principles of the food law of the European Union. These are the facts – the three major studies – that we used as the basis for drafting that bill. The proposal is based on the following reasons: - first, the primary importance of public health that should be formed in an independent body; - second, the precarious relationship between the government and the sector; - third, the need for external control; - fourth, the balance between efficiency and effectiveness of the controls; - fifth, the need to continue with the responsibility of the entire sector. Therefore, in our proposal we have incorporated a three-stage control model. The first step is self-control. Companies will have to progressively build their own surveillance system, driven by European policies. The second step is the inspection for nutrition. It is an institution that in a versatile manner has the entire food chain under its jurisdiction. We call that in the proposal the inspection of food. This audit body should be able to verify all standards applicable in a particular business segment. Therefore, we advocate the concept of polyvalence or, elsewhere, multidisciplinarity. In particular, it concerns the application not only of public health standards, but also of animal health standards and standards with regard to the plant sector, economic and technical standards. From this service, a cooperation with other government administrations, such as fiscal and social controls, will therefore need to be established. This inspection will be under the responsibility of the Minister who has the nutrition under his or her jurisdiction. Through the multidisciplinary approach, there will be transparency in the sector and the government will also gain a broad view of the company or the sector concerned, which can significantly increase the effectiveness of the controls. The inspection will also be active throughout the entire food chain, from producer to distribution. This makes it possible to improve the exchange of information, one of the essential requirements for achieving efficient control, between the different squares in the production chain. This inspection will direct an audit and will also establish the control standards. It will also evaluate the control techniques and adapt them to changing requirements. On a regulatory level, in order to create this food inspection, the government will have to make the necessary royal decrees, and this level of control can therefore be financed by the sector. The bill does not specify under whose jurisdiction the inspection of the food will be. In any case, the service cannot directly fall under the Minister of Public Health, who would become a judge and a party. This inspection service is a parastatale that depends on all relevant departments, namely the departments of Economic Affairs, Public Health, Agriculture, Finance and Social Affairs. At the third stage of our proposal is the Federal Food Safety Agency. The third stage of control is observed by an authority that monitors the food chain and this purely and only from the perspective of public health. This body is therefore financed by general resources and operates independently of the economic sphere. It finds its reason for existence in the fact that in a high-quality society the protection of public health must prevail on purely quantitative factors. The Federal Food Safety Agency must ensure that the weighing of own interests, as is now so often done within all existing control services, is no longer possible. The Agency will define public health standards on a scientific basis. The bill that I have now described has already been submitted at the beginning of this year. Meanwhile, we have experienced the dioxin crisis, which has resulted in a strong assumption of the credibility of the food control services. The new government now announces that it will immediately work on the establishment of an agency. The existing control systems will be brought together within the Agency to ultimately result in an integrated control over the entire food chain, taking the protection of public health as the starting point. In order to carry out this task, the government asks this parliament to approve a special law on power. In fact, this is in form and content a pure law of authority. The State Council evaluates this draft on the basis of the four criteria that special power laws must meet. If it were not a special power law, the Council of State would of course not mention these criteria. This law is an empty box. The political decision for which concept to choose has not yet been made. Agalev colleague Peter Vanhoutte expresses that, in my opinion, even the best. He says: We need to give the Minister sufficient playing space. So, everything is still possible, the minister can choose. We must choose a control concept that complies with a number of fundamental principles. The control system should be the result of an integral merger of all existing inspection services, namely DG4, DG5, IVK, the General Food Inspection, the General Pharmaceutical Inspection and part of the Management Economic Inspection. In his speech today, Mr Vanhoutte gave an illustrative example that demonstrates the need to add a part of the Board of Economic Inspection to this merged Inspection Service. We aim for an Inspection Service which is also a multidisciplinary inspection service. We will later explain what this means to us. A third important starting point is the fact that an ongoing external control should be placed on this inspection service. A fourth important starting point is the separation between the standardising authority and the control authority, as well as a separation between the responsibility of the person organising the external control and the responsibility of the person under whose jurisdiction the inspection services fall. All this must, of course, be guaranteed by a scientifically well-founded service that sets the standards for public health. In this draft, it is not entirely clear what scientific bodies will now stand in front of. These basic principles have not been invented by us: they have their origins, among other things, in the in-depth analysis made by the IVK committee, but also in the external audit commissioned by the previous government by Price-Waterhouse-Coopers, and equally in the EC Green Paper. They are largely included in the preliminary recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee on Dioxin Research. If there is no political consensus within that majority on the control concept, this draft is submitted to Parliament as a mandate decision. I believe you immediately, Mrs. Minister, where in your defense in the committee meetings you claim that the pressure to keep everything up with the old is very great. You also told the press, because I also read it in various press articles.

They heard it here. That is normal.

You say that we need the pressure of the dioxin crisis to carry out things quickly. Furthermore, you declare that you take into account the work that has already been set up both in the IVK committee and by the previous government. I must admit that you do this intentionally, but not concretely. Moreover, in the discussions, we note that the real political choice has yet to be made. You are nowhere with the exact completion of your concrete, new control structure. Mr Denis, among other things, warned you that the government should not have too big ambitions. In fact, he voted against the recommendations of the dioxin commission, precisely at the point of the new control structure. Even the vague description of the merger of the various control services was unacceptable for him. Minister Gabriels and the majority members in the Committee on Business are very clear in their opinion: they do not want DG4 and DG5 to be exhausted. They will continue to carry out controls on the ground. Mrs. De Meyer found the following quotation a very unfortunate description, but it demonstrates sufficiently how strongly the violins are or are not aligned with each other. Literally, in the opinion of the Business Committee it is stated: With regard to this latter department, it should be taken into account that the boards DG4 and DG5 have a much wider set of tasks than the tasks falling within the competence of the federal agency. These include, among other things, the guarantee of the quality of raw materials not related to public health, the control of the guaranteed levels of active substances or ingredients, the control of animal diseases or the promotion of the quality of the cultivation material. The Department of Agriculture and Middle-Earth should retain the people and resources to properly perform these tasks. These contracts are essential for the agricultural sector. It should also prevent an increase in the administrative burden on the sector. It is therefore appropriate to keep these services, which carry out the control on the ground, at the Department of Middenstand and Agriculture. Cooperation with the Agency may be carried out in the form of a protocol containing the department’s performance commitments, in application of the aforementioned article. The Agency may then monitor the functioning of these services, for example in the form of audits. This position is, by the way, further defended, among other things, by the Cabinet Head of Minister Gabriels at the Millennium Meeting of the Boerenbond. On behalf of the Federal Minister of Agriculture, he warned Mrs. Aelvoet – I quote from a newspaper article – that she would rather not have the ambition to attract the Federal Agency at all. Therefore, it is clearly not yet clear where the division will be carried out and what the division of tasks will be. However, all studies and experience in the field clearly show that fragmentation of powers greatly complicates and often even makes it impossible to control the food chain, to detect problems, and to take appropriate measures. In that regard, it may be appropriate to compare the similarities between the draft law in question and the Act of 1981 on the IVK. The IVK has been in the political branding for many years. Its functioning has regularly been the subject of questions, interpellations and even a special committee. It is very strange that the present bill is largely based on the law on the IVK. It is actually a decoction of it. I have demonstrated this very thoroughly in the committee and I would like to repeat it here briefly. The following parallels are very clear: in both cases we are talking about a parastatale A, we are talking about a advisory committee and we are talking about a board for Veterinary Assessment. Furthermore, the financing of the IVK can be set on an equal basis with the way the Agency will be financed. Therefore, the tightening of the IVK and of the Federal Agency is apparently identical. It is therefore interesting to go deeper into the IVK for two reasons, first, because of the recommendations of the IVK committee at the time, and second, because there are many parallels with the IVK in this draft. An important point that has emerged from both the findings of the IVK committee and the dioxin committee is external control. During the work of the Committee on Meat Fraud, a strong call was made for the establishment of a permanent external control. Taking into account the control task of the IVK, it is not surprising that the relationship of the IVK with the sector is precarious. First of all, the sector faces major economic interests in an international context. In addition, companies are thoroughly monitored in the context of safeguarding public health. Furthermore, these companies must pay duties for this, with the size having consequences for their international competitive position. Finally, the IVK sometimes has to make decisions with severe consequences for the economy and employment. How this precarious situation expressed itself in relation to the IVK was one of the key findings of the committee. In a particular segment of the food chain, namely the slaughterhouses and the carcasses, the IVK is the only control body responsible for compliance with both economic policy objectives - export certificates - and public health policy objectives - inspection of meat and quality control of meat. Our decision was that the IVK was faced with contradictory interests, where weighing is possible and no supervision is present. According to some - which was also a point of discussion at the time - the Department of Agriculture is a production department and monitors the Department of Public Health over public health standards. Such a statement of course fully meets the requirement of a good slogan, namely, simple and sounding well. But this slogan does not take into account the complex reality and in that sense is deceptive and even somewhat dangerous. In addition to the control of animal health, the Department of Agriculture - at least to date - also takes over the control of a portion of public health. In this context, I think of the control of living animals, of milk and the like. The officials of the Department of Public Health do more than just watch over public health standards: they not only implement other regulations, but are per definition also active in a sharp economic tension field. For example, the IVK was also designated to control the implementation of restitution regulations and is responsible for issuing export certificates and granting recognitions. During the hearings in the investigation committee, some notable statements could be noted on this subject due to a representative of the DMO’s, Mr. De Meester. Normally he had to be heard in the dioxin commission this morning, but he was replaced. Anyway, at the time, his analysis was very sharp, in the sense that he said that the IVK was set up to watch over public health, but that too much time is spent on financing and recording the backbone, and that too little time is spent on improving its operation. Then he said very explicitly: The IVK is not independent of industry. He also challenged the practice of export certificates, in which verificators are encouraged to sign certificates drawn up in a language incomprehensible to them. The problem with export certificates was illustrated during the dioxin crisis. For the sake of companies, there was an inflation of different models of certificates, not only coming from individual veterinarians, but even from certain inspection circles. Companies also sometimes reacted sharply to the laxity of the IVK. The NVS, VINAVIAN and others unwaveringly let know what the shortcomings of the IVK are. Even the top officials of the IVK were not blind to this and according to Dr. Moor, our country undergoes too much of the economic interests that push the European Union forward. Price-Waterhouse-Coopers has identified similar concerns in its audit. The connection of the veterinarian with the institution where he is present daily or weekly automatically creates a form of cooperation. Mr. Speaker, colleagues, all this shows that all the officials, both of Public Health and of Agriculture, are in a very precarious relationship to the companies. The problem is not solved by simple slogans or by too transparent measures that dismantle a part of the officials. A much more fundamental approach is needed. Permanent external control must be established. I do not find this element in the present draft. The government does not provide an adequate response to key pain points identified by the Meat Fraud Commission and the Dioxin Commission. The proposed restructuring will not ⁇ the intended objective. First line inspections are always carried out in a context of different interests. The fact that the controls are carried out by officials of Agriculture or Public Health is irrelevant. External supervision of Public Health on the first-line control is necessary. However, one must be careful that the public health services do not become a judge and party. A first-line check should not be organized by Public Health. If this is not possible, the first line control must be separated from the external control. The conclusion is obvious. At this point, the federal agency will function as the IVK currently works. It is an extension of the IVK. The federal agency will quickly end up in precarious situations and must make compromises. This is intolerable for public health. I note that we have learned little or nothing from the recommendations of the Meat Fraud Commission. The findings that the dioxin commission has made so far are not taken seriously. There is only one cloth for bleeding, a sham cloth. There is no question of the absolutely necessary fundamental distortion of the control landscape. One of the major pain points of the dioxin crisis was related to the communication problems with the population. No government agency was able to correctly inform the population and enjoy their trust. The meat fraud committee established by Parliament has determined that public health is a sensitive subject for public opinion. Specific problems in the meat sector such as fraud in a company quickly lead to reactions that cause damage to bonafide companies. In the United States, the FDA still succeeds in enjoying the confidence of the population because it works in an independent and highly scientifically based way.

Mr. Brouns, it surprises me that you portray the FDA as a reliable and authoritative institution. You know that the FDA, unlike Europe, allows hormones in meat. This is one of the reasons for the trade war between the United States and Europe.

Mr. Speaker, I am talking about the FDA. Within the fields in which it operates, the FDA still enjoys confidence. If you follow my interpellations over the last five years, you will find that we have no confidence in them. However, I assume that they enjoy confidence within that Community. Whether we follow them in everything, of course, is another matter. Americans are not Belgians.

It is the custom that water flows to the sea.

Indeed is . However, this does not exclude that this takes time.

In the Meat Fraud Commission as well as in the preliminary recommendations of the Dioxin Commission, we have said with so many words that we must provide a perspective for the development of the new structure of integrated and polyvalent control. According to the explanation attached to the bill on the establishment of the Federal Food Safety Agency, the fragmentation of powers makes it difficult to control the food chain, detect problems and health risks and take appropriate measures. One of the fundamental findings is the fragmented action of the government. We have described this as follows: Several bodies have advocated for one integrated control system. The auditors, on their part, advocated for efficient control mechanisms. The sector notes that at present the government is acting too fragmented. Also the consumer organization Test Purchase has in various publications and during a testimony before the Meat Fraud Commission unwaveringly advocated for the merger of all control services. They say that the breakdown in control of the meat chain at the height of the slaughterhouse is widely known. Sanitel, an identification system set up by the Department of Agriculture, works very well. However, it stops at the door of the slaughterhouse. The public health services do not have a system that accompanies this. The EDS study, conducted on behalf of the Department of Public Health in the spring of 1998, calls for an integrated approach to the food chain, both in terms of the qualitative and quantitative aspect. The trade unions Fedis and Funavian also advocate a versatile approach to the controls. They are also not in favour of a fragmented approach. They also hope that the new structure will integrate everything together into one service so that they are not confronted with different types of inspectors. Otherwise they do not know who they have to do with and who is responsible for what. The idea of the versatility of the inspection services, which is also mentioned in the bill, although not elaborated - for the companies represents an equivalent of the unique locket. This is something that we also find in another context in the government agreement. For the government, a versatile approach has the advantage of developing a much better and broader picture of the real activities of the companies. I remind you of the incident that we found at the time at Belgranit or Tragex-Gel. It was not a veterinary problem, but a case of financial bullying in which stricto sensu public health rules were not violated but public health was endangered. Tragex-Gel was recognized by the IVK because it met all the hygiene requirements included in the regulation. That the company in the meantime sinked and endangered public health proved to be of no importance to the official of Public Health. By the way, they knew nothing. The chairman of the committee found that for the first time an external service, in particular UCLAV or the European Anti-Fraud Office, violated the laws. Only if the inspection services have a broad view of the operations of the companies will they be able to act accordingly and effectively and protect public health. It is intended to allow the officials in the new control structure to only perform public health checks and no longer involve them in the application of the other legal rules in those companies. This would lead to enormous inefficiency and inefficiency for both the government and the companies. In fact, this results in even more fragmentation. I would like to compare the following bill with the recommendations of the external audit firm PriceWaterhouse-Coopers. The audit defines the following basic tasks: first, standardization; second, regulation; third, control policy; fourth, information management; fifth, management of the control programmes; sixth, on-the-spot controls and finally the follow-up of the control results. This is the package that was studied by this external audit. Price-Waterhouse-Coopers proposes the establishment of standards at the level of the Ministry of Health. The first basic prerequisite for achieving a good organization is the separation between policy preparation and policy implementation. In order to set up the integrated control service, two options are developed. In the first option, the distinction between policy preparation and policy implementation does not embody in the structures. All basic tasks are performed by one parastatale. The second option, however, makes a distinction between policy preparation and policy implementation. There is also a structural indication of how this should be done. Policy preparation refers to policy standardization, technical regulation. The control policy is carried out by the parastatale. Policy implementation, information management, management of control programmes and on-the-spot controls can then take place in a flexible legal structure. We summarize the advantages of this second option. They said nothing about the first option. It only pointed out the danger of a possible lack of coordination between the two policymakers. Furthermore, they say that a divorce offers many benefits. I will give a short list of them. The policy preparation remains strictly within an administrative structure. Determining balances in a board of directors is possible, but for me less relevant. One can also work with government commissioners in such a structure of a parastatale, depending on the choice of the parastatale. A management agreement can be used. A performance commitment can be made. The risk that those who do policy preparation work and at the same time have to act policy-executionally and bear responsibility has been avoided. Therefore, one can respond much more flexibly, because one does not have to take into account implementation problems all the time. Finally, Mr. Minister, I would like to ask a few questions regarding the present draft. When the draft will be drawn up as described here, this will affect the rights of the staff and DMO's of the Department of Agriculture. How will the removal of staff members of, among others, DG4, DG5 and, where appropriate, other parts of DGs, be organized? We are not only concerned about safeguarding the rights of the statutory staff, but also want to know what you plan with the DMO’s of the IVK. Will they be included in this new entity, and if so, under what statute? Will the DMOs remain veterinarians with mandate, or will they become officials? We want clear answers to these questions and this is important not only for the staff, but also for those who need to be able to evaluate the policy. What will eventually remain of the Department of Agriculture? Where will the division be achieved? In addition to a DG4-, DG5-, DG6Agriculture, will there also be a DG4-, DG5-, DG6 Agency? I advocate a major overhaul but wonder to what extent the department will still be able to carry out its other tasks, including in the function of the SMEs. The explanatory note states that the establishment of the Agency should be budgetally neutral throughout the line. The reorganization of the public services concerned should therefore not give rise to an additional burden on the federal government budget. This means that the Belgian business sector, as the only one in Europe, will have to continue to pay for public spending. This also means that the services will not be able to have the necessary resources to make the necessary investments. After all, it means that the existing sub-crew will continue. This budgetary carcass in advance constitutes a strong obstacle to a thorough restructuring. Therefore, after the dioxin crisis, the government has no money to auction for the food security of the population. What political conclusions can we draw from this? First, there is no concept in this bill. It is pure authority. It cannot be otherwise, because within the majority there is still no agreement on how the agency should look concrete. Second, there is no separation between what we call the policy preparation and the policy execution part. One of the key conclusions of the dioxin commission, as well as from the external audit of PriceWaterhouse-Coopers, is that the inspection services will not be fully multidisciplinary. There will be no permanent external control of the inspection services. External communication remains problematic. The government has no penny more auction for making the food chain safer. Everything must be done with a closed stock market. Finally, I have demonstrated that the agency becomes a faint pressure of the IVK, and nothing excludes a repeat of the mistakes that the IVK has already committed. It is clear, we cannot approve this bill. When we started discussing this bill and compared it with my proposal, we had the illusion that we were going to recover some of our fundamental principles. This is unfortunately not the case. In your explanation and in the discussion, you have defended our principles. Your intention is good, but if it needs to be made hard and effectively completed, you remain in failure, because there is no consensus about it. We regret this. Therefore, we will not approve this draft.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. I say well seemed to be because it is hard to see today that the first political gesture of the Minister of Public Health, however from a group of whom one would expect the valorisation of participatory democracy, is the deposit of a law of special powers. Yes, dear colleagues, all the ingredients of this legislative technique are found in the bill. It is clear that the circumstances are exceptional and that Belgium must have suffered a serious food crisis. But it is less obvious that this bill must be treated like this, in the rush, in front of parliament. Just a month ago, the parliament was facing a first empty shell: that of compensation to the sector following the dioxin crisis. Today, a second one is presented. Moreover, the Minister asks us for the authorization to repeal, supplement and amend some fifteen founding laws on food. Let me, Mrs. Minister, ask you whether this type of legislative technique has become the only way the government is able to resort to having a minimum of consensus within it. The granting of special powers is only one example of this lack of interest in the contribution that parliamentary work can offer you. The parliamentary work we provide as part of the dioxin crisis investigation committee makes little sense if the government anticipates, as it has just done, the committee’s recommendations and tries to impose on parliamentarians its own idea of a control scheme. Since the dioxin committee aims to decide on all necessary adjustments in the organization and control of the sectors concerned, in order to preserve the health of consumers, it is a real parallel work that is provided by the executive and legislative powers. Seeing you submitting this project today before the House, I cannot help believe in a lack of interest in the investigation and synthesis work that has been carried out simultaneously since September. Moreover, by its hasty attitude, the government has forced the order of the work by forcing us to submit in urgency recommendations which are only intermediate. These are recommendations that can be improved since all the actors of the crisis have not yet been heard. This finding, Mrs. Minister, is not only that of the rapporteur of the commission of inquiry; it is also that of some members of the VLD who were concerned about this organizational overlap, both in the public health committee and in the agriculture committee. Once again, it must be observed that this concomitance between the work of the commission of inquiry and the study of this bill does not seem to have concerned ECOLO-AGALEV a little. To justify this precipitation, you argued, Mrs. Minister, that we should give a strong signal to the population. You were right. This bill can be summarized as a simple signal. Its real realization will not occur until several years. By doing so, you mislead the citizen by making him believe that this agency will actually operate from 1 January 2000. So far, no organizational structure of the agency has been clearly explained to us. This is why your project remains inaccurate. You explain to us that there will be, for now, a gathering of five supervisory bodies. While this physical aggregation is a priori reassuring for the consumer, it does not offer him any additional guarantee, either medium or long-term. Why Why ? Simply because nothing is provided in the law to control the control services. To whom will the control services you intend to gather be accountable? How does the situation you are looking at differ from the current situation? The only assurance you give us in terms of external control relates to the future European Agency. Is this a guarantee, since you also acknowledge that at this stage of reflection the Member States do not agree on any point, except that the national food safety agencies should not be abolished. You do not offer any guarantee to the consumer if the only control instance to which you refer exists only in the embryonic state. Furthermore, nothing assures us that all Member States will want to entrust the role of external control to the European Food Safety Agency. If we cannot accept your bill, Mrs. Minister, it is because neither in the objectives nor in the missions of the Agency you make a distinction between the control services and the control of these control services. As long as these two structures are not differentiated, you cannot guarantee the protection of the food chain. You told us that external control should not take place in the starting phase of the agency. This is precisely the external control that you should have established in the first place for our country. The most credible sign for the citizen was to tell him that reform should be considered in two times and in the form of two structures. As the control services existed, it was necessary first to propose the creation of a light and flexible federal agency limited to the control of the control services and, secondly, to integrate all the control services. by Mr. Denis reminded us in the public health committee that the reason is that of small steps. Unfortunately, this advice has not been followed. I wanted the real reasons for our disagreement on the bill to appear from the beginning. Let me now review some points of this project. My first remarks relate to the missions and objectives of the Agency. As our VLD colleague Pierre Lano has very well noted in the Agriculture Committee, I repeat here the text of the report, by assigning a wide range of objectives to the agency, we risk setting up a structure so large that it could prove counterproductive. These criticisms were mine during the general discussion of the bill. Article 4 of the project remains a list of missions, without them being structured structurally, without us being assured of who does what. It is about control, review and expertise of products at the same time as monitoring compliance with legislation, drawing up opinions, granting authorisations and even prevention. This listing is a real mess. How can one reasonably imagine that the Agency is effective and guarantees the quality of food for the consumer if it is at the same time that develops, implements and controls the measures aimed at managing the risks that may affect the health of consumers? This is not a double but a triple hat that the government is considering for the agency. To be effective, the Agency cannot, as a single legal entity, carry out such different tasks. Objectively, the government has understood this because it plans to entrust, by royal decree, the tasks of the agency to third parties. This delegation is likely to cause confusion. For risk analysis, it seems to us preferable, depending on the facts found, to refer to more specialized laboratories. But we no longer follow you when you claim in commission that third parties can also take charge of risk management. By practicing this type of delegation, you risk sowing confusion within your own control services and, as such, I agree with the fears of counterproductivity raised by our colleague Mr. M. by Lano. The important thing is, in my opinion, to distinguish the tasks of developing standards from the activities of control itself. For us, the agency must have the following role: it must bring a plus compared to the current situation. It must therefore first and foremost fulfil the role of controlling existing and future control services rather than being the aggregation of all services. It must therefore ensure that the control services comply with and observe the control procedures. These services must report to an entity that is hierarchically superior to them. It must ensure a normative role in compliance with and within the framework of the legislation in force. In other words, it must assist and collaborate in the development of the regulation of standards. For this purpose, it must be a body with high-level multidisciplinary scientific competence and authority at the national and international level. As such, it should be competent in terms of risk analysis and management in order to prevent any contamination and to provide the consumer with the most objective information. Finally, in this framework of risk prevention, the Agency must play a driving role with sectors in encouraging self-control. If some in the majority have warned the minister about the difficulty of making mentalities change, it is important for the agency to force that future. The agency we are considering, Mrs. Minister, is a light structure with well delimited missions but ensuring the consumer a plus. Our VLD colleague, Pierre Lano, expressed my concerns by reminding in a committee that the goal cannot be to create an institutional mastodonte that would be unable to carry out these ambitious missions. This mastodonte, you are creating it. But what really were your sources of inspiration? You told us in commission that you were inspired by the Danish model. If this really were the case, the government would not have created a new agency, but it would have taken the side of integrating all control services within a General Directorate of Food, all under the tutelage, not of the Minister of Public Health, but of the Minister of Agriculture. Furthermore, four other European countries have decided to create a specific agency: France, Great Britain, Ireland and Spain. All of these countries without exception have opted for the establishment of an agency with high scientific competence competent for the establishment of public health standards in food. All these agencies have delegated control tasks to pre-existing and future control services while coordinating and overseeing their operation. These are limited-competence agencies that, unlike your project, do not combine all control services. I remain convinced that the agency as we conceive it can be homogeneous compared to other European agencies. This assimilation is not a reflection of a lack of originality. This is a political will for efficiency. In the future, Europe will need to better control possible contaminations within its borders through national agencies. Their homogeneity guarantees greater efficiency. It is unacceptable that the statement of reasons does not make any comparison and does not under any circumstances evaluate the options adopted by other States. There is a flagrant lack of perspective in the preparation of this project, but this may not fall within the habits of the law firm to which the State commissioned this bill, a somewhat costly and surprising practice on the part of a government that cried out loudly in July 1999 that it would strengthen the links between offices and administrations. The analysis of the agency’s missions allows me to address in a second time two fundamental questions: who will actually control and what will be the subject of control? To the question that will be controlled, you have undoubtedly answered in the same way: all services will be transferred to the Federal Food Safety Agency as long as they are aimed at protecting public health. If your logic is followed, the services of the DG4 and DG5 will be doubled. Inspectors of the DG5 will conduct checks in the companies to verify in particular - I take your own example here - the calibration of apples and the inspectors of the agency will control their sanitary quality. It is unthinkable to want to separate agricultural policy and consumer protection policy. By thus dichotomising each other’s missions, you do not create an atmosphere of collaboration between the inspection services, but you radicalize the image of an agriculture pursuing strictly economic interests and should focus exclusively on economic control and flow control. The reality is less caricatural. First and foremost, it is important for us to proceed at all levels of control to the inspection of quantity and quality. The explanation you gave us does not guarantee us this double analysis at all levels of the food chain. Moreover, by causing a doubling of certain services, you will maintain, with operating companies, a hesitation about the structure to call in case of a problem. When asked what the agency is going to control, you answered: the entire food chain. And that is very good. But for now, you cannot offer any guarantee to the consumer about the quality of waste recycling and its integration into the food chain since no cooperation agreement with the Regions has yet been concluded. Limiting yourself to receiving the opinion of the Regions without having previously concluded a cooperation agreement on these issues throws a certain discredit on your project. At present, you cannot guarantee quality control over the entire food chain and you go even further by signaling to the Commissioners, as part of the overall discussion of the project, that not all Regions demonstrate the same willingness to collaborate. And I take as proof the expression of the Welsh Minister of Agriculture who has not hesitated to qualify, through the press, this agency as a bidule and who, as part of his policy note for the year 2000, plans to create for the Welsh Region a regional agency aimed at food security. The third part of my thoughts goes to the funding of the agency. The explanation of the reasons is very clear. The establishment of the Agency will be budgetally neutral in all its aspects. The reorganization of the public services concerned cannot, in other words, cause an additional burden on the federal state budget. However, your statements in the Health Committee, Mrs. Minister, are different. I would like to relate your remarks to the members present. Perfect neutrality cannot be guaranteed because the establishment of the new structure is likely to generate costs that cannot be foreseen today. It is clear, Madame the Minister, that the establishment of the agency will represent a negligible cost for the State even because you intend to physically gather all services within the same structure, that you intend to hire new people on a contractual basis and above all because you rely too liberally on the intervention of third parties for the phases of analysis and/or risk management. These assistants have a significant budgetary cost that will have to be paid. Once again, the public feels deceived. It is impossible for this operation to be budgetally neutral for the state. Therefore, I must understand, Madame the Minister, that this operation will be, over time, yet neutral for the State because the sectors concerned will need to contribute more to the financing of this agency. This will ultimately only aggravate the existing distortions of competition for our companies and penalize the consumer who, being at the end of the food chain, will bear this disguised tax that will inevitably be reflected on the selling price. You understood this financing scheme in the explanation of the reasoning of the bill since you note that in the medium term the agency will be budgetally autonomous in terms of control tasks. This bill does not provide us with a clear financial plan. No figures have been mentioned. I would like to remind before this assembly that we still do not know what will be the contribution of Europe, if there is a contribution, what will be the share reserved for state credits, and above all what will be the share of products, duties and remunerations. How can you consider the amount of these contributions since you are applying for authorization for all the laws that concern this type of financing? Finally, I need to address the primary issue of the commitment to the transfer of personnel within the Agency. Periods of uncertainty are detrimental in any type of professional structure. By acting in the precipitation, by persisting in wanting to create, on 1 January 2000, an agency of which one does not even know where it will be physically situated and of which one does not know the organization, you create a certain discomfort within the administration and promote the professional instability of the commissioners. The lack of cooperation with the relevant authorities is a fundamental mistake. The proof was also given to us this morning in the dioxin investigation commission where representatives of mission officials complained that they were not contacted in the preparation of this project. In the draft as submitted to the Office of the Chamber, the future staff of the Agency, whether transferred or recruited, could have no interest in the companies or establishments within the competence of the Agency. Let me qualify this provision as true ostracism: since a fairly substantial number of the statutory or contractual staff comes from the agricultural or veterinary environment, it is unimaginable to be so radical. Why would one have been a victim of having a farmer father? Why go so far as to refuse a secretary to be recruited, simply because the chance wanted her to marry a farmer? Why prevent a veterinary inspector from being a beekeeper? These are just a few examples, but these, in my opinion, illustrate the problems that the government would have faced. I can understand your concern for avoiding conflict of interest, but the modalities you advocated were excessive and discriminatory. Fortunately, this provision was partially corrected. Finally, there is another recruitment that has triggered long debates: that of the administrator-delegate. Your government has made a very thorough description of the one or the one to whom the direction of the agency will be entrusted, a description so thorough and detailed that we could, so to speak, go so far as to guess who this or that might be. Imagine, dear colleagues, that this rare bird, placed at the top of the hierarchy of the agency, might not be bilingual and could therefore be seen joining another person, not because this function requires too large responsibilities on the national and international levels, but simply because its unilingualism must be replaced. In short, the role of the assistant would be limited to that of a translator-interpreter. In conclusion, Mrs. Minister, Mr. Minister, Dear colleagues, we want an agency for the safety of the food chain: this is a priority. But not at any price, or any way. The precipitation with which the government prepared this draft is reflected in the form, in the choice of the legislative procedure, as well as in the content. We cannot accept the agency as it is currently considered. The Minister did not convince us of the provisions for which he asks us for the authorization. We cannot present to citizens and consumers a project that will not offer them any additional guarantee. Finally, Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, I will take back the image that I used in the committee. The government asks us for a building permit to build a giant building, of which, unfortunately, it has no plan to show us. Therefore, I fear, Madam Minister, that the draft agency submitted today will sooner or later be added to the list of unnecessary work.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, Mr. Minister, the SP is very pleased with this bill that finally fulfils the years-old demand of the consumer movement to carry out all inspections relating to the quality of food under a single denominator and under the competence of a single minister. Finally, with this framework law, the control of rike to fork becomes a reality. In order to effectively cover the entire food chain, in addition to the integration of the Food Inspection, the IVK and the Pharmaceutical Inspection, the integration of DG4 and DG5 is indeed also an absolute necessity, in so far as they deal with food quality and the protection of public health. The coincidence means that this week the book From the ground to the mouth was presented. This book is the result of a survey commissioned by the federal government. The book describes a research into traces of quality nutrition and quality branches. Crises such as the dull cows or the dioxin scandal draw deep traces in the minds of people. The study rightly emphasizes that today there is a general mistrust regarding the quality of our food and the institutions that control it. Restoring this shocked confidence is the big challenge for the Federal Food Safety Agency. The new agency is facing an extremely difficult task and will therefore need a good coach who will lead the entire operation in good positions, possess sufficient management skills and have sufficient feeling to deal with human resources and who, as far as we are concerned, should be perfectly bilingual. After all, the independence of the members of the agency is actually the Achilles tail of the entire operation. After a long discussion, I think there is a consensus on the correct formulation here. The fact that staff members are required to report on their possible ties with institutions or enterprises falling within the competence of the Agency before their entry into service is a very good thing. A royal decree will further specify how any conflict of interest can be definitively excluded. This royal decree will also be read by us with arguments. The establishment of the agency is a milestone for the SP in our struggle for safe and high-quality food. In addition to standardization and inspection, the Agency also has an important communication function. This will have to be hard-cut. After all, it was primarily the communication – or the absolute lack of it – that lacked during the dioxin crisis. However, it was hallucinating that at the time of the dioxin crisis consumers were barely informed about the risks of PCBs or dioxins, about their spread in general and through food in particular. If there was already communication, it was mainly about the economic aspects of that crisis. Openness and transparency of the entire control process, including to the final consumer, are absolute conditions for restoring the consumer’s highly needed confidence in their food. Strengthening the control and consolidation of the various services is one thing, absolute transparency of those controls is another. Maximum information from the consumer is required. We are not talking about additional labels or quality labels, we already have more than enough of them. Our principle is very simple: all foods must be of good quality. A double circuit with, on the one hand, branded, safe and probably more expensive products and, on the other hand, unmarked, unsafe and cheaper products is unacceptable for us. The agency should also be low-threshold for the cross-snow user. At that point, we remained somewhat on our hunger with this design. Therefore, we also submitted an amendment with the SP to install a notification point at the agency where the consumer can reach for objective information and where individual complaints can be handled. The amendment was adopted in the committee with 11 votes for and 1 abstinence. We are very pleased that in this way the Federal Agency interactively addresses the citizen and thus responds to the great need on the ground. Also hopeful for the future of the Federal Agency is that the consumer movement structurally has a finger in the pot thanks to the installation of the advisory committee. At our explicit request, the Minister stated that it would indeed take into account the fact that producers often have much more people and resources to strengthen their views in such advisory committees. Both in the composition and in the process, according to the Minister, it will be guaranteed that the consumer will be able to put sufficient weight in the scale and not fall into the hell. Finally, in the case of the SP, the responsibility of the producers should be considered more closely. In the committee, the Minister also promised to work on this. The responsibility rules need to be developed more balanced, so that the government is not left with the largest financial framework. Indeed, the insurance arrangements concluded by the producers are completely insufficient to cope with major crises. Our group is already planning to take legislative initiatives on this subject. Mrs. Minister, Mr. Minister, this framework law is a milestone in a new food policy in our country. However, the most important work has yet to begin: the actual integration of the services on the ground and the writing of the necessary implementing decisions. In the latter regard, the consumer organisations are requesting parties to be closely involved in the preparation of the royal decrees. We rely on the Minister to engage the working field as much as possible and we have full confidence in this. Under these conditions, the SP will fully support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, Mr. Minister, colleagues, today we are trying to conduct the discussion on the establishment of the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain. For compensation, the Minister of Agriculture must also come to the parliament on a draft. According to a Belgian report, however, he could not laugh at it. This can count as a staple of new political culture. Let us, however, take the freedom to outline the political contours for which we now, among other things, conduct this discussion. The dioxin crisis broke out in the last fourteen days of the election campaign. Because of the media heisa that emerged then, food security suddenly became an election topic. The dioxin caps just fell into Agalev’s mouth. The Greens managed to turn the 1995 election defeat into an election win. The Christian Democrats were presented the account for the arrogance of power for 40 years. The socialists fell down to a historical low. Thus, the fulfillment of Guy Verhofstadt’s childhood dream came a bit closer. A purple coalition was now more than ever possible, and so it happened. This country is now filled with a good coalition whose entertainment value is ⁇ high. For the first time, even Greens were considered ministerial, so the government agreement had to include some green accents. The Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain is one. The government became the prisoner of its own government agreement. By the end of 1999 the Federal Agency should and should stand on its feet. The State Council threw a little more roar into the food by giving quite sharp comments on the first draft. The boiling is now there, and apparently needs to be baptized by parliament soon. Therefore, this discussion should have taken place urgently. Ladies and gentlemen, I will be clear. The Flemish Bloc places several critical notes to this Federal Agency, but from that you should ⁇ not deduce that food safety would not interest us. On the contrary, we have also been irritated over the past years by the misplaced competition between the Ministries of Agriculture and Public Health. Mr. Speaker, if you allow me, I would like to use this discussion to fundamentally put my finger on the wound. We must dare to draw political conclusions from the dioxin crisis. The dioxin crisis made it clear to even the smallest child that in Belgium, in recent years, there has been no policy regarding food safety. This did not really surprise the Flemish Block. After all, a quick and efficient policy at the Belgian level is by definition impossible. And in that sense I must admit that we do not believe that the establishment of a federal agency will solve the problems. According to the Flemish Bloc, all powers in the field of public health should be transferred to the level of the Communities and all relevant provisions should fit into a European context. In our vision, of course, there is no longer room for a Belgian intermediate level. Furthermore, part of the matters relating to agriculture and public health are already within the competence of the Regions and the Communities. The State Council correctly points out that consultation with the northern governments and the federal government is necessary. Nothing in the bill indicates that this happened. From this argument you may deduce, Mrs. Minister, that the Flemish Blok is quite critical of the present bill. It even gives the impression that the Belgian government is once again carrying out a sort of recovery of the already scarce powers of the Regions and the Communities in this area. In globo, the dioxin crisis made it clear to everyone that the services that had to carry out food quality control interacted against each other according to the well-known pattern. In that sense, the food crisis that our country is experiencing is not only a matter of food security and therefore of public health, but rather a matter of political failure of a government apparatus that does not appear to be able to effectively carry out controls on the ground. The Belgian policy on agriculture and public health does indeed wreak all imagination. However, laws and royal decrees are not missing, but they do not prove applicable or are not complied with. Also the external audit of the inspection services of the quality of the meat products, conducted by Price-Waterhouse-Coopers and dated 8 January 1998, once again exposed the pain points of the Belgian control system relating to the food chain. According to the old Belgian custom, all kinds of ministries and services are involved: Agriculture, Public Health, Economic Affairs and others. And according to the same local customs, there is no or little cooperation; everyone does his thing without delimitation of responsibilities and preferably without taking into account any other service. Efficient control cannot be spoken in these circumstances. The conclusion is not beautiful: the government hardly knows what is happening on the ground. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, for the Flemish Bloc it is clear that the dioxin crisis is primarily of a political nature and only in the second order a crisis related to public health. Therefore, we continue to point out an accusing finger to the Belgian government, which bears a great responsibility for this crisis. Mrs. Minister, of course, you personally do not assume any responsibility in this, but one must dare to admit that your predecessors are politically responsible for this crisis. I do not like to hear this, but you have to be honest. Finally, the Flemish Bloc does not sit in this assembly to bring about sympathy, but because we have the damn duty to accuse every day again the poor functioning of the Belgian public apparatus. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, I have no pretence of identifying the final responsible for the dioxin crisis. After all, that is part of the task of the Parliamentary Investigative Committee. The dioxin crisis is also a political crisis for other reasons, especially due to the slashing of the previous government led by Jean-Luc Dehaene. His Ministers of Agriculture and Public Health, Mr. Pinxten and Mr. Colla, respectively, were clearly unable to get the problems signaled under control. Among other things, the recent way in which the European institutions were informed also caused the foreign country to lose all confidence in the Belgian food products. Subsequently, the food crisis became truly a political crisis at the moment when the VLD’s Destickere informed the then VLD opposition leader Verhofstadt of the dioxin crisis. For the time being, the question remains unanswered whether Destickere wanted to give his VLD friend Verhofstadt a push in the back in the elections. For all these reasons, the dioxin crisis, in our view, is a political crisis. One should not be hypocritical and shoot the messenger who says straight straight what he thinks he should say. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, I would like to clarify the position of the Flemish Bloc on the present bill. As regards the merger of all the services concerned, I would like to point out the difficulties faced by the Minister of Home Affairs as a result of the announced and re-blown merger of the asylum services. Fusion is not an easy exercise. Although the Flemish Bloc is not in principle opposed to a merger, we currently do not have decisive arguments that a merger will ensure a better function. With its intention to regulate important elements of a royal decision, the government implicitly admits that it does not really know where it wants to go. The Flemish Bloc puts a lot of questions in the choice of the government to draft a framework law. The government calls for urgency. Unlike the dioxin law, there is no urgency in this matter. The dioxin law needed to be promptly adopted in order to have a legal basis for compensation from the agricultural and food sectors. The federal agency is nothing more or nothing less than a symbol file. We should not be fooled by the fact that we want to send a quick signal to the European Commission. The hypocrisy that is raised in this dossier really knows no limits anymore. Last week it was revealed that the current ministers of agriculture and health in an official note to the European Commission let know that their predecessors acted as good household fathers. This contradicts the accusations of the Prime Minister addressed to the previous government. In such a hypocritical game the Flemish Bloc does not participate. The best proof that there is no urgency is provided by the government itself by drafting a framework law. At the moment, one still does not know where one wants to end. We are asked to approve an empty box. There is no urgency because the minister himself has stated that he wants to take into account the results of the dioxin commission. The committee’s interim report does not contain any decisive elements that could convince us to already approve the federal agency. Key actors of the crisis, such as the former ministers Colla and Pinxten, have not yet been heard. Today’s debate is not really serious. The Investigative Committee may ask the Chamber to extend its mandate. Therefore, the Flemish Bloc proposes to quietly wait for the results of the investigation committee in order to be able to process them into a solid bill. Mr. Speaker, colleagues, the bill does not mention an external control of the agency. According to the bill, the establishment of the agency will not require additional financial resources. The federal agency, like the IVK, will be financed by the sector. The government implicitly admits that it does not intend to release additional resources to better organize the control of food security. Mr. Speaker, the Flemish Bloc was ⁇ entertained by the discussion on the language role of the delegated director of the agency. This proves that nothing has changed regarding language-sensitive files. It became really ridiculous when the People’s Union proposed to solve the problem by appointing a deputy. Anyone can perceive the similarities with the notorious appointment in the dioxin commission. Mrs. Van de Casteele must assist the Dutch ignorant committee chairman Janssens in the ruling of something that should be similar to Dutch. As democratically elected voters of the people, the Flemish Bloc cannot accept that the government in this file requires a blanco cheque from parliament. Much too many powers are delegated to the executive power, which will clarify its general principles by royal decree. From a healthy suspicion towards any Belgian government, the Flemish Bloc is not enthusiastic about such a law on powers. The Flemish Bloc is soundly critical of the present bill and will therefore not approve it.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, the law establishing the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain is a good project because the existing structures sometimes lack efficiency, because they lack transparency, because they are often poorly coordinated, because this situation leads to malfunctions, which creates dangers for consumers and alterations in the credibility and trust in our products, both within our country and abroad. However, we know that Belgium is primarily an exporter. This project has been further improved through amendments made in the committee. The best of them is undoubtedly the one that fundamentally changed Article 6, and that you accepted, Mrs. Minister. This article 6 initially provided for the total prohibition for those working for the agency to have interests in a company controlled by the agency; now it advocates that this interest must be declared, which will ultimately give more clarity and transparency. The law is a framework law, which means that the government will have a great freedom, but also a great responsibility with regard to the establishment of this agency, Mrs. Minister, What are the conditions for the proper functioning of such an agency? What are the feasibility criteria? First of all, you need a good boss. Like any institution, the Food Safety Agency will first be what its head will do. We will need someone who knows what it is about, an experienced person who has a global view of things, who enjoys a spirit of synthesis and analysis, capable of coordinating, delegating, gathering people and leading them, who will be concerned with objective information, clarity and truth. Such a person must be recruited with objectivity, based on well-defined criteria. I am convinced that such people surely exist within our administrations and that there will be no need to take them outside. But you know it and you are ready to go and find it where it needs to be, Mrs. Minister. In order for this agency to work effectively, it is also necessary to keep what works well, not to break everything to start again. Of course, problems have already emerged within our administrations, but this does not mean that they do not work; on the contrary, malfunctions are fortunately the exception. It will be about revitalizing the existing and giving it a new momentum. Keep in mind that creating a brand new structure will be expensive, time-consuming and will lead to some start-up errors. It should also not be forgotten that it will be more effective, rather than removing everything to rebuild, reorganizing what exists, coordinating services, ending overlapping and competence conflicts, as well as ensuring a good coverage of controls across the entire chain through better communication between services. Furthermore, Mrs. Minister, remember that one of the main causes of the crisis we have just known is the lack of information. In the future, it will be necessary to establish vertical information, from top to bottom of the administrative pyramid, horizontal information between officials of the same administration and between administrations, and also information to the outside, to the public, to the media and to the business partners of our country. This information must be complete. You will have to say all the truth, nothing but the truth, the one that is bad as well as the one that is good to say and that is not said enough. We have become accustomed, in recent years, to say what is wrong but, often, we forget in our administrations to tell the public and consumers in particular, what is right. A lot of things are going well. This should be said and recalled often. Furthermore, the agency’s financing may, for the PRL-FDF-MCC group, be based on sector-based duties and fees. But we insist that these duties and fees should be linked to the weight of the goods or the unit and in no case to the time of delivery, otherwise we will continue, as we have done by some royal decrees, to harm the small and medium-sized enterprise where the pace is slower than in the large enterprises. Furthermore, regardless of the structure that the government will give this agency with the help of the powers that will be entrusted to it by law, it will have, among other tasks, the establishment of standards. These will need to be established based on European standards and the real risks for the consumer, and not, as we tend to do more and more, based on the evolution of the technical means of laboratories that manage to detect so fine doses of pollutants that they have nothing to do with those that present a real risk for the consumer. In the future, standards will need to be realistic and established on the basis of scientific studies, objective and real, otherwise we will result in an unnecessary over-protection of the consumer, at the expense of our producers and at the sole benefit of our foreign competitors. One last comment on self-control. I am much less convinced than some of my colleagues that the industry is prepared for this type of approach. I have a long experience with food. The sector, today, must fundamentally change its culture to approach self-control itself. The future agency will need to help change this culture. The PRL-FDF-MCC group will vote on the draft framework law but, Mrs. Minister, it will put the government under high supervision at the time of drafting the royal decrees. Thank you for giving me the word. I hope I respected the time I was given. Dear colleagues, I thank you for your kind attention.

This is my second time in this legislature. The first time I was told that there was more atmosphere here. At this time, however, it is very similar to the Flemish Parliament. Nevertheless, the chairman still keeps the sticky note.

I have no future in the Flemish Parliament.

I was prepared that this was just the real forum.

I appreciate this objective statement.

Thank you for the alertness. As an introduction, I have a historical note. I have examined how the control of foods actually came about. It is strange that it has always taken fifteen years to take further steps. In simple terms, there was initially only control to see if there was no fraud committed with the meat products. The year 1970, with the Club of Rome, the development of industrialization and the optimization of production techniques, was a hunting year. This ultimately led not only to higher gains, but also to the realization that a number of risk factors were not visible. We also note today in the dioxin commission that not all injuries are visible. In 1970 this led to the first control measures that were limited to the slaughterhouse. Fifteen years later, the border was moved. Then control was developed in the companies. Now, fifteen years later, the last step may be taken and the raw materials are also checked. Of course, everything has to do with the development of hormones, the production-stimulating agents, the still legs, the products with germ-growing action and the H- and R statutes. Mrs. Minister, it took exactly thirty years to come to what we ultimately need, namely an integrated chain surveillance. One can ask whether success is the result of chance or not. We would enter an open door if we would say that the rapid establishment of the agency is a consequence of the dioxin crisis that our country has experienced. That is of course so. I refer to the previous legislature, in which very serious cases such as hormone fraud, the use of antibiotics in the breeding of pigs and chickens and the scratching of British beef eventually gave rise to very rigorous parliamentary work under the presidency of Mr. Brouns. These recommendations should not be thrown in the wind. In the end, this may have been the basis for accelerating a number of things, including the establishment of this agency. You cannot get around there. You cannot get around. Anyone who says it is an empty box, I want to contradict. The insights that were then matured cannot be put aside. I have heard of no one who did not want to implement these insights, even though not everything is already black on white on paper. That speed with which this design is scheduled and approved, and with which some have had or have had difficulty, is right. It has more than a symbolic function. It is the only way to actually put some things in the starting blocks. We can talk about it for months. Before getting to an optimal construction, there might have been time over. The thalm in the past is the cause of this. I read in the Acts that you were asking party for the resignation of the then Minister of Public Health, Colla. The proposal you submitted at the end of the previous legislature was ultimately an emergency brake to indicate your seriousness and the willingness to do something about it. There were apparently tension fields which left a number of issues undiscussable.

Mrs Avontroodt, the overview you sketch is a good thing. I admit that there was no consensus at the time to push the agency through in its then form. I have to say to my great regret that I was all alone at the time, without any support. At that time, there was not the same alertness or drive present within the Parliament as it is now. But that nothing would have happened is not correct. We did not have a majority for it. That is the cause.

Mr. Brunson, I see my position only confirmed. Success can not only be attributed to chance, but is usually the result of sound preparation. It can reassure you that the work that was delivered at the time came with the constructive cooperation of the opposition. Mr Jules Van Aperen then made a very constructive contribution to its creation. What is the added value of such an agency? One of the most primordial points is the restoration of the confidence relationship of the Belgian government with Europe. This is important and will help to regain that trust in Europe faster. If no clear or structural signals had been given, this would not have been recovered so quickly. The creation of such an agency – some colleagues have already said this – is not static, but must become a dynamic process. This is like a pillar above water. Mrs. Minister, we had and we have discussed this a number of times and would also have preferred that there would be clarity about the pharmaceutical inspection. The foundation on which this agency rests is narrowed, because the safety and quality of the pharmaceutical products are not incorporated into it in one breath. It would have improved policy coherence and removed certain thresholds for Europe. That promise may be fulfilled at a later stage. It is normal that a wide range of objectives should not be achieved at a too fast pace. This would work counterproductively. Consultation must be made in advance. Some colleagues have already pointed out this. It is not intended to create a masto-non, but a coherent whole. The Minister should honour as a basic principle – we have talked about it in detail – the risk analysis and risk management. But there is more. It should ultimately be a participatory risk analysis, which means that all actors involved in food safety should take their share of responsibility. Consumers, the industry itself, the scientists and the producers must be educated in such a way that they can all undergo some form of risk analysis. The concept of participatory risk analysis thus becomes a pillar of the Agency. The uncertainty and resistance that every change evokes are human and predictable. It is up to you and this Government to discuss the matters in substance in openness and in consultation with all relevant administrations. A constructive and, above all, independent and objective structure must be sought. This morning the DMO’s were speaking. They have very well illustrated where the error can go and which elements have led to fatigue, inefficient functioning, or to a lack of communication. All these elements originate in the manke links of the inspection. Mrs. Minister, in order to avoid the birth of a mastodont, we have held a plea for a form of self-control, which can also involve private organisms. The responsibility of the sector itself and the creative and innovative handling of a number of control techniques are the focal points of the design. I would like to ask you to pay sufficient and substantial attention to this, and ⁇ also to look over the wall, in other sectors or in other countries where accredited bodies perform functions. We, of course, continue to uphold the principle that there must be control over the control. It is not at the core of the task of the government to carry out that effective control on the ground itself, but the government must be responsible for the control of the control. One of the main tasks of the government is the control of the control. One aspect has not been sufficiently discussed. It may not be possible to include all of them in the framework scratch, but should there be no legal initiatives on insurance and liability for the sake of responsibility? Independence and objectivity have already been discussed extensively here, and I will therefore not stop at this. However, there is still the preventive role of the agency and it should not be underestimated. A policy vision based on information to be provided by the sector itself assumes the preventive role of this agency. However, prevention must be strictly separated from repression. Then there are the European regulations and the examples such as the Meritus and Certus system. I only refer to this as an example. Of course, the policy should be aligned at a broader level, not only to ensure competition, but also to optimize quality. I have been able to speak extensively about the certification method in the committee and I am pleased to hear that you were open to it. One of the most delicate points is ⁇ the appointment of a delegated director. Should they come from the administration or from outside? I am not talking about this, but I advocate for the appointment in the most objective way. However, I could not understand that someone in that position would not be powerful in both national languages. With all the understanding of the quality criteria, in this country and with a very strongly developed agro-industry like in Flanders, it must be a bilingual. You know my concern about the Advisory and Scientific Committee. Here too, I strongly advocate a balanced composition so that the policy preparation and consequent advisory work of this committee is as balanced and rational as possible. Then there is parliamentary control. We strongly urge you to keep your promise and not only pay attention to the recommendations of the investigation committee, but also to make them the center of a debate, where we could hear your opinion. Furthermore, it should also be possible to ratify a number of implementing decisions, involving the Parliament. Finally, I would like to mention the 70s. The Club of Rome then emphasized that there were limits to growth. European Commissioner Sicco Mansholt had already understood this. On the eve of the next century, we cannot ignore that it is not only about engineering, technology, production and engineers, but also about mentality.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. My colleague Mr. Paque, has already mentioned the problem of creating the federal agency from a more technical point of view. If I really go into all the details, my intervention will be more of a political order. I will address two elements on the form and five on the substance. First of all, – you will ⁇ have noticed it – we have not submitted amendments, not from the will to not work, but simply because we are totally disagreed about the overall philosophy of your project and your government. The PSC supported and still supports a proposal that could, for example, be the one that Mrs. Creyf and Mr. Creyf had always submitted. and browns. The PSC, within the framework of the first bill, which aimed at the compensation of companies, and of the agricultural world in general, following the dioxin crisis, had not requested the reference to the Senate, this, to save time and, beyond the parliamentary peripeties to the House in the framework of this bill, not to delay an compensation of the sector concerned. As far as this project is concerned, we feel that it is not of the urgency that some have sought to give it. One of our colleagues in the majority spoke of symbolism. The speech of Mr. Denis has no longer the same consonance as a few days ago in the commission. We are therefore somewhat disturbed, Mr. Denis, in relation to your speech.

My speech has not changed at all. I would like to point out Mr. Those who claim to approve so much. Brown as Mr. Pope, that is impossible. They have fundamentally opposed ideas about the structure of the agency. by Mr. Paque is in favor of the light structure, while Mr. Brunson is in favor of full integration.

No to! No to! But we can come back to it later.

After the session.

No, not after the meeting, Mr. President! I will immediately answer Mr. Denis, but I will not leave the draft of my speech. As I said, we will ask for reference to the Senate, because we believe that there is ⁇ a way not to improve the text as it is proposed but to honor a proposal like that made by other parliamentarians. And we do not doubt, Mr. Denis, that if many parliamentarians of the majority and ⁇ especially of the PRL and the VLD were not caporalized, many of us would have the desire to vote in favour of a bill like the one that was deposited by colleagues of the majority. The second element I wanted to emphasize regarding the form is the urgency. The opinion of the State Council was requested on 13 August. He had to take a decision within three days, as far as he could. The texts were presented in the respective committees in November and you submit them to us today, 15 December, in the plenary session. Some have spoken of exceptional measures, special powers. For a project of this importance, the consequences of which will be felt in all the enterprises in the food chain and for every citizen, was it really necessary to work with such diligence and in a text that takes the form of a framework law? This has already been said several times in the committee, but I wanted to repeat it in this tribune. What about the quality of parliamentary work and the working conditions imposed on parliamentarians? You know, in the Committee on Economic Affairs – and more ⁇ for the issues related to agricultural skills – this way of working has been quite poorly felt by parliamentarians, both at the level of the opposition and the majority. Some complained and even asked us how we could accept working in such conditions. But there is a more fundamental aspect compared to the urgency and to which mr. Paque made a reference. We do not understand why it seems today that we do not want to wait for the conclusions of the, oh how praiseful, work of the inquiry commission. Even if it is true that you have requested an intermediate report that will guide you for the preparation of future royal decrees, it is important to note that many parliamentarians in the commission of inquiry do not fully understand the logic of organization of work that is imposed on them. Finally, we wonder whether this approach does not hide the real will that the majority had when deciding the installation of this commission of inquiry. Didn’t it rather be about clogging at the pillar of the political or administrative officials who were in power until a certain time? Finally, you laugh at the conclusions of the Commission. The majority takes care of putting your ideas into practice and there is no need for an investigation commission for this. One would therefore come to believe that the way in which work is organized today aims only to succeed in accusing some political leaders, or even ⁇ , for some, in settling accounts. I now come to a few reflections on the substance. Mrs. Minister, Mr. Denis, we consider that this project does not guarantee a better situation compared to the current situation. I had the opportunity to meet with some agricultural organizations last Monday. Among them, we qualify your project as a large bucket that would replace a series of different administrations or agencies, in any case at least five. What you call integration is accomplished by the concentration of all the work organized so far by these administrations and organizations in the hands of only a few officials. Responsibilities and consequently controls are grouped in the hands of a few people. We do not have the impression, Madam the Minister, – I do not play the political game of majority against opposition here – that the way you have considered things will actually allow to solve the problems that the whole of Belgium has encountered. Even worse, ultimately, a lot of responsibilities, work and the entire chain of control will be concentrated in the hands of a delegated administrator. This should be bilingual, etc. You are right on this point. You can already deduce some, ⁇ hidden, consequences of your project. What will be the future of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture? Behind your project, Madame the Minister, is not hidden the first draft of what could be a gradual reorganization of agricultural skills in our country, with increased federalization? by Mr. Happart, Minister of the Walloon Region, seems to acknowledge the thesis that all this goes in the direction of allowing the Region to benefit from more responsibilities and competencies in the future. We concentrate in the hands of the Minister of Health the competences that were previously entrusted to the agricultural sector. We consider, Madame the Minister, that if this can be felt as praiseworthy in terms of the organization of Public Health in our country, undoubtedly, in terms of purely economic, in terms of the defence of a sector of activity such as the agricultural world, all the enterprises in the food chain dependent on the agricultural world, we ask ourselves whether it is not a problem to entrust this to a department that will have as its objective public health and ⁇ a little less the defence of the interests of a sector that, in a country like ours, already suffers. Beyond the underlying problem, we would see public health gaining more and more importance in the agricultural field. Under this government, under this rainbow majority, do the liberals not make a mistake in entrusting increasing responsibilities to environmentalists in the field of agriculture in general? The third point concerns the problem of consultation with the Regions. Do you not believe it, as the Minister of Regional Affairs said. Happart, that the lack of obvious coordination with the Regions risks creating very quickly skills conflicts? Now to the financing. As Mr. said. Denis, you are not opposed to the fact that the sector is again sought to contribute to the financing of all this. Allow me to tell you that, on our part, we see once again the will of some ecologists – reassure yourself, Mr. Michel, it is not you that I aim –...

Do you feel targeted?

No, Mr the President. But let me react in relation to what has been said.

You and Pray.

Thank you Mr. President. by Mr. Brouns has at least the merit of proposing an alternative project even if it is with different sensitivities. I have noticed that mr. Fournaux issued a number of criticisms but made no suggestions. I would like to conclude that Mr. Furnaux believes that in this regard the maintenance of the current mechanisms is satisfactory?

Our proposal is in my conclusions, Mr. Michel. You will have to wait to find out. To return to financing, we see – I said – a will of the ecologists and some socialists to blame the sector in relation to the situation we have known. This is exactly the same approach that we encountered when financing the compensation of farmers and agricultural enterprises. We believe that asking the industry to contribute personally and to a large extent to the financing of all this is completely incompatible with the praiseful spirit of independence that you wish to see conferred on this agency. It would therefore have been necessary to provide for a fully independent control agency that would have been funded by the state without recourse to any direct contribution from the sector or companies concerned. Finally, I come to the tax that the State Council had already mentioned on the occasion of the first bill. Whether you like it or not, this is a new tax that will be subject to all companies in the food chain. God knows how far this can lead us. This can range from famous food contributions to the street corner grocery who pays according to the size of his trade and all this will accumulate. What about the cumulative of this food contribution introduced at the initiative of Minister Colla? So what about the cumulative with what was decided in the first bill on compensation for companies following the dioxin crisis? In fact, let me say, politically, that if it is true that the liberals are seeking to control the global tax in our country, it is hard to see in this majority that, for a few weeks...

by Mr. Michel wants to interrupt you for a moment, Mr. Fournaux.

Mr. President, I thank you. Very briefly, I would like to know if

Mr. Ferguson, you have the word.

Mr. Michel, I am currently preparing my municipal budget and I know the ways to reduce global taxes, for example, the additional taxes on natural persons, while touching a whole series of other forms of taxes.

I believe that we are here moving away from the food security chain. Mr. Michael, please let me finish. and fire.

I conclude on these arguments, stating that by financing so far each of your specific projects by a disguised form of tax – and on this point, I am only following the opinion of the State Council – my group and myself believe that the liberals are abandoning what they called a ‘stop’ tax. They also abandoned the foie gras, as well as the administrative simplification, since God knows if what is proposed today will in no way allow to simplify things; on the contrary, and we are convinced, this proposal will complicate them even more. Why were we then in favor – Mr. Michel, you are partly right – of the philosophy developed in the proposal submitted by Mr. Michel. Brouns and Mrs. Creyf. This is simply because we were more favourable to what was sometimes called simply control control. Let us leave things in order and make sure that a really coherent and independent control can be organized. Furthermore, Mr. Michel, you can check in the parliamentary annals that some of our former colleagues, Mr. Arens for example - you may not have been born, Mr. Michel, however it was not so long ago that this and before the mediatisation concerns this assembly - that Mr. Arens, therefore, had very often filed bills or interpelled some ministers, ⁇ about the work of the IEV, proposing a formula quite compatible with what Mr. Arens. Browns offer today. The philosophy developed by Mr. Arens to manage this area allowed to install lighter mechanisms, financially less expensive and much simpler administrative implementation. Furthermore, it would have been possible not to give the impression of putting everyone in the same bag and not to modify systems already performing in our country – like the SANITEL system – which, by the way, are often highlighted, across Europe and which in one way or another risk to be questioned today in such a project. The formula proposed by Mr. Brouns also allows for urgent action, since its project is much simpler and avoids questioning too many things. I would like to conclude with a few more political, quick questions, Mr. President. Whether we like it or not, believe me, Madame the Minister, for us, parliamentarians of the majority, who have sometimes been sitting for long years during which some were not yet born and others were already working in the majority, to see the ecologists, of the North or of the South, to endorse the way the work was done within our assembly to impose this bill, is really sad. The distance is enormous, as much as a great gap, between the principles of Mrs. Dardenne and her friends, and what they are realizing today. It is also a law of renunciation by some, especially liberals, in relation to what they called a tax stop, because a tax stop is not just what Mr. Trump did. Reynders and Mr. Michael this afternoon. Members of the majority have talked to us about symbols; we will rather talk about marketing: in fact, you simply want to show your voters that you are acting, regardless of the price and regardless of the number of laws to be modified later. These changes are made binding by voting on this framework law. Unless you and your majority, especially the ecologists of the North and South, did not want to surf on some popular emotion to impose what you could never have imposed in more ordinary times. In this case, your other partners of the majority are rolled in the flour.

I remind the House that the draft was submitted almost six weeks ago and that the committee dedicated five quite dense meetings.

I would like to respond promptly to Mr. According to the agency, Mr. Brouns and I are on the same wavelength. I am referring to the text of the bill submitted by Mr. Bruns, as regards the Federal Food Safety Agency. Its tasks will be to oversee the food chain, to ensure that existing control services and, in the future, the food inspection, do not balance the objectives set by the same Agency; on the other hand, to set public health standards, collect scientific information, conduct scientific research and report. If you have listened well to my speech, it is almost word for word of what I said in the tribune a few minutes ago. I can reassure you about this.

Mr. Speaker, I would not like to answer this, but we all agree that something needs to be changed and that initiatives need to be taken. If we count, we are almost all on the same wavelength. The difference is how to ⁇ it.

Mr. Speaker, since the time is limited, I will not return to the fact that here we have to do with a law on powers. I had searched for a few quotes from colleagues who came from the opposition to the majority, which clearly said that powers undermine democracy, but I will spare them for you. Tonight we talked about the Federal Food Agency. Nutrition is important, especially in our over-saturated Western society. Nevertheless, it can also be said that there are still people in this world who are dying of hunger. We come from far away. Those who occasionally travel to distant countries and there see how food is skipped - it is often sold in unhygienic conditions along the street knows what evolution we have gone through. This evolution has a number of positive sides. We have a huge choice of food. There is also a positive development in terms of hygiene. We have the opportunity to eat strawberries in the winter, which was unthinkable 30 years ago. This evolution continues and we can also ask questions about it. There are also negative sides to this development. Some colleagues have already described this here. The gap between producer and consumer has become so big that a lot of links become responsible for what we eventually get on our plate. The single market and increasing competition are increasing the pressure on producers and farmers. More and more must be produced at ever lower prices. We have evolved into an increasingly intensive agriculture that also tries to control nature. We may ask ourselves whether that is the best course of affairs. The food industry is important. It is a global turnover of 880 billion francs. There are a lot of interests involved. The fact that this pressure was caught up with foodstuffs for years, we know longer than we know today. It is especially in the meat sector that in recent years a lot of scandals have come to light. It is a sad story of unconscious use of antibiotics, tranquillizers, beta-blockers, and hormone abuse. It is a story of money gain, fraud, fraud and fraud. There was even a murder in our country that we can attribute to it. Even in the dioxin commission today we have heard stories of pressure and threats expressed against people who want to do their job well. It is also increasingly a struggle between Europe and the United States, between Europe and Australia and a number of other major food exporters. It’s a story of ruthless competition, where the law of the strongest counts and that largely escapes our democratic control, despite the fact that we have big discussions about it. It is also a war in which the interests of the multinational food corporations overtake the interests of the consumer, the butcher, the small farmer. It is a sliding evolution in which the so-called objective science silently takes over the role of democratically elected parliamentarians. This should be taken into account when determining the tasks of the Agency to be established. The political world has less and less grip on the whole happening. However, this does not mean that not everything should be done to guarantee the safety and preferably also the quality of our food intended for both the domestic market and for export. Our country has a strict hormone legislation. Since 1994, under the impetus of a number of duty-conscious officials and a number of politicians, a hormone legislation has been introduced which is considered to be one of the best and strictest in Europe. Despite this, the hormone mafia still appears to escape us. This also needs all our attention. The People’s Union has always been very concerned with this issue. Jaak Vandemeulebroecke played a leading role in this area. As a member of the European Parliament, Mr Brouns joined a research committee on the quality of meat in Europe already in 1988 – not in 1997, Mr Brouns – and inspired a number of debates that were also held in this Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, I did not say that 1997 was the only time we were dealing with this matter. Mrs Van de Casteele, I would like to hear you referring to our solid hormone legislation. By the way, I have twice taken an initiative to tighten the law. Moreover, the founder of the hormone legislation was a member of our group, in particular André Bourgeois. This occurred before

Mr. Speaker, thank you for this explanation, Mr. Brouns. I’m not saying that you did nothing about it. On the contrary, and we are thankful to you and your group for that. I believe that the hormone legislation was made across all party boundaries. In any case, since 1988, this debate has been held regularly in this parliament, but unfortunately usually following some new scandal. A number of references have already been made to the resolution adopted in 1997, but to which the government paid little attention, as well as to the recommendations of the Meat Fraud Commission, by the way. Also in the discussion of this resolution every word had to be weighed and weighed, which in itself spoke book parts. After all, every time we were confronted with opinions from different angles and different interests. However, the debates on the resolution and the recommendations of the Meat Fraud Commission have also taught us a lot about the mentality of officials, about the problems of the administration, about the pressure of friendly interest groups and lobbies. For me, things were quite simple. For years the CVP was the master and master of agriculture and from there defended the interests of the heaviest of its pillars, in particular the Boerenbond. Public health had little to break in the pot—even today they call themselves the chichi boys of Agriculture—and the Food Inspectorate bumped somewhere behind the chain. The IVK grew out of the controllers of the slaughterhouses. It is an illusion to believe that the appointment of new ministers will resolve the problems of interplay and bring about a change of mentality. The politization of the relevant administrations will continue to be heavy. The minister is waiting for the heavy task of bringing about the necessary mentality change. The report for the meat fraud commission of the Flemish Association of Veterinary Doctors, among other things, deals with the deficiencies of the IVK. The association complains not only the suffocating obligation to be self-sufficient but also the extensive politicization of the summit of the IVK and last but not least the excessive influence of economic interest groups. That Agriculture was controlled by the CVP and thus by the Boerenbond, was clear to me. The fact that the interest groups have too much influence in the IVK makes the eyebrows shrink. The author of the report asks whether it is acceptable that the same group owns animals, slaughterhouses and the processing industry and itself pays the veterinarians and the staff responsible for ensuring that the final products are good for public health. The author adds that this system is controlled by the IVK which, in turn, must have representatives from the same group in all the advisory boards and falls under a department where this group has the right to speak. I repeat that adjusting this system is a heavy task. The VU&ID group fears that the agency will become an extension of the IVK. I am determining that the Agency will be staffed by veterinarians of the veterinary services of Agriculture, inspectors and inspectors of the Food Inspection and of DG4 and a mass of veterinarians of the IVK. I think it will, honestly speaking, come to the conclusion that what they themselves have called several times the peasant logic will prevail in the agency. I looked at the Food Safety and Inspection Services in the United States. There are 1,200 veterinarians on 9 000 staff members. This is also a service that controls mainly meat in the agricultural sector. I fear that the predominance of veterinarians in the new agency will make it look too much like the IVK and will also show all the disadvantages of the IVK.

Mr. Speaker, the example that Ms. Van de Casteele cites is very important. With the appearance of the control services in America, one needs the veterinarians less because one acts as a team. The veterinarian is there only one person in a whole team of experts who each have a certain qualification, from technician to tax inspector. If one implements polyvalence in the control system, one will need fewer of these people. This will also give you a different culture.

Mr. Speaker, the first requirement is indeed a change of mindset, both among the producers of raw materials and finished products, as well as among the public services and consumers. If we talk about the producers, then the dioxin crisis has undoubtedly been a signal for the entire food sector. At first glance, it was a limited problem. There was some contaminated fat in the feed. However, this relatively limited problem turned out to have very wide-ranging implications for the entire sector. If the producers are not awake of public health – and I am, by the way, convinced that some of them do – the economic consequences are of such nature that they may now be willing to take initiatives themselves to try to avoid similar problems in the future. Mrs. Minister, it is good that you consult with these sectors to establish a closing system of self-control. They are responsible for their products. It is also good that they are involved with the agency through your advisory board. Sometimes it is compared to other products that can actually equally endanger the safety of people. For example, in the production of cars there is no need for government control on safety. The system of quality control and manufacturer liability ensure that the vehicles are removed from the market or recalled for inspection when the slightest problem arises. In fact, such a system should also be possible through liability for food products. More product responsibility is also needed in the food sector. Of course, a self-control system is easier to implement within large groups. This is one of the things we need to keep an eye on. It is ⁇ not my intention to come to an ever-increasing scale in this sector. We must therefore try to put together self-control systems. In this regard, I refer to the control of raw materials in the pharmaceutical sector. The pharmacists jointly commissioned a control institute to carry out samples for them. Such a system should also allow smaller producers to establish quality systems. The central task of the agency will be the control of self-control. You have rightly pointed out the fact that our own control system should also get external control, because the confidence of the population has indeed been compromised. We have identified the risk of interference within the public apparatus, so that an external audit would be organized there. In the meat column or the meat sector, this is not a single task. That is clear. There are the problems of feed and raw materials, but in the meat sector there is still the risk of drug administration and the problems of residues and hormones. The administration and control of medicinal products, the observance of maximum residue limits or waiting times are the responsibilities of veterinarians. The control is carried out by veterinarians, namely by farm veterinarians. In the production of meat, the pharmaceutical inspection is not at all suitable. The pharmaceutical inspection controls only the distribution system of medicines. It controls raw materials at the stage where no distinction is made between raw materials intended for human use, antibiotics for example, and raw materials intended for animals. It is also included in registration files. Usually there is no distinction either. Furthermore, new veterinary medicinal products are usually regulated at European level: the maximum residue limit is set there and we as a Member State have little control over that. There are very few reasons for carrying out the pharmaceutical inspection in the agency. I urge to study this again thoroughly and to let the people of the pharmaceutical inspection speak. I am talking about people who know the legislation on veterinary medicine. There are not many and consultation would be useful. Three things threaten to happen. One: the pharmaceutical inspection sunsets in the agency that is full of veterinarians. These people become a kind of food inspectors, they stand hierarchically among the veterinarians. Until now, they are often the lice in the fur of veterinarians. It is therefore said that this would be a conscious strategy of people in the cabinet or the administration in which one wants to disable it. Through the Agency, the current system of distribution of veterinary medicinal products would also be meticulously challenged. Everything in the veterinary sector should be taken into consideration. Two: the multifunctional hormone cell has done very good work. In fact, it should be strengthened, but there are, unfortunately, only a few people in this country who know the legislation on veterinary medicine and its implementation in practice. They must be permanently activated in this hormone cell. We have already talked about this in the committee. It is not intended to place the hormone cell in the agency. A good communication between the two must be ⁇ ined. A number of people could get overloaded when they both sit in the agency and get a position in the multifunctional hormone cell and in the multifunctional residual cell. I have already pointed out a third problem that could arise, in particular the fragmentation of the pharmaceutical inspection service that is not already well-equipped. This would create new communication problems. This creates a hybrid situation: either you create a food agency, or you create a food and drug agency. We are now between two chairs. Very partially, the facet of the medicines is touched, although this facet should not be mentioned here. I would like to refer to what the Consumer Organization says about the new division of services that focus on the safety of the food chain. This division does not preclude the continuation of new divisions and new services dealing with consumer health. They also point out the uncertainty in the field of cosmetics, toys and medicines. There should be no uncertainty with regard to the consumer. I understand and share their concerns. Finally, Mrs. Minister, your design is very vague. Thus, you can still get out of all directions and that goes well for you, especially with regard to the services of Agriculture that still need to be transferred. I also think of the statements of his chief of cabinet, which the Minister of Agriculture subsequently tried to disrupt with a neegeknik, but which are still symptomatic to what is happening and show what contradictory visions still exist between you and your colleague of Agriculture. This agency ⁇ has a number of positive things. The integration of the various services is positive, although the meaning of that word can be discussed for hours. We have already discussed the significance of fusion and integration in the dioxin committee. We finally called it merger, but well what’s in a word? We do not yet know what you mean by this. In any case, it should be avoided that there would be no control at the hanger points. In any case, it should be intended to solve communication problems within the Agency. But we should not create new communication problems. Of course, it is also positive that the decision has been made to put the agency under the competence of Public Health. We have also discussed the division of control and standardization here. I will no longer stand still here today. You will ⁇ have to take into account in your royal decisions the mixture of interests that some colleagues here rightly have raised as a concern. As regards the language requirements for the leading official, I am pleased to note that the Flemish majority parties support the principle. They are apparently not willing to support an amendment in that direction. Per ⁇ they would rather be silent than to come here again to tell. Collega Vanhoutte, I don’t mean you, you haven’t spoken yet, but I honestly don’t make me a lot of illusions about it. We know that of each other. But the others say one thing and do another. A number of people have pointed out the lack of multidisciplinarity within the agency. It seems to me clear that something should change in this in the future. There is also a need for a change in consumer mentality. The Agency has an important role to play in this regard: it should inform people, provide more product information and enable better communication on what food safety should be. Of course, I can’t talk about the issue of competence. I will not repeat my words from the committee here, but for me the standardisation must take place at European level and the control could be left to the Member States. I see the control happening at the level of the Regents. To my pleasure, I note that Flemish Minister Dua, who can nevertheless be suspected of great sympathy for and great attachment to further state reform, from her competence notes that a partial federalization of agriculture would ⁇ be a good thing. She finds agriculture so different in Flanders and Wallonia. She believes that product policy and recognition of pesticides would best remain a federal competence, but that the rest would be better regulated by the regions. I say this not only, but also a green minister, and, by the way, also her Wallish counterpart, Mr. Happart. In the options to be taken, there are a number of good points. However, the whole remains too vague: due to the powers and risks I have outlined, we cannot approve this draft at the moment.

I would like to thank mr. Charles Michel who signaled to me that he no longer wishes to intervene due to the late hour. I appreciate this free-will.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, the bill we are discussing today will ⁇ allow to install one of those structural measures, each of which, at the strongest moment of the dioxin crisis, agreed to say that they were indispensable to avoid the repetition of similar catastrophes. I would like to point out three important requirements that we find in this bill. The first of these requirements is as follows: the establishment of the Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain will allow the grouping and integration of the various services and administrations responsible for the control of the food chain. The recent crisis, which the commission of inquiry notes every day, has highlighted the problems posed by the division of skills, in particular in relation to communication between services. It seems quite obvious that such modes of operation have not promoted the optimal and quick management of problems. On the other hand, for anyone who knows the organization of trophic chains and their properties, including the phenomena of bioaccumulation and reconcentration between the different links, it is obvious that control must be integrated and that an overview is needed, from fork to fork , as some have been able to say. Certain links in the food chain are more vulnerable than others, ⁇ due to the characteristics of certain pollutants, for example, the fact that they are stuck in fats. But, already, the commission of inquiry has shown the need for a strict, if not draconian, control of raw materials. It is, in fact, to exercise the maximum of controls, as far up as possible in the chain, thus a priori and not a posteriori, when virtually the entire chain may have been contaminated. Certainly, a posteriori controls are still needed, but ⁇ more on the mode of probe shots, in any case, if all the precautions and control measures have been fulfilled in advance. Reading by Mr. The opinion of the Agriculture Committee is selective. There is indeed a question of certain skills that must remain in the field of agriculture but there is also a question of skills that are not related to public health. These are residual competencies. Further, we are told that the department must keep these (defining demonstrative) missions. This seems to me very clear and does not correspond at all to the interpretation you give of it and who would like to make this one his possessive, showing thus that skills become the property of agriculture, which I think is not the case. There has also been a lot of talk about progress towards the concept of self-control. It is ⁇ interesting, but only to the extent that we are not dealing with what is known as integrated enterprises that hold all the stages of the production process. Self-control seems to me, in fact, based on the supervision and the mutual requirement of the companies against each other, vigilance which guarantees a level of quality. Another condition of self-control is for me the establishment of specifications of strict charges and the controlled certification of their application. From this point of view, it seems to me that the Agency will, in the future, also have to question the principle of corporate and producer civil liability. I think that Ms. Van de Casteele also mentioned this point of civil liability which, in my opinion, should be total, which would then allow a much greater attention to the level of quality. There is a second important requirement for us in the establishment of this agency, that it highlights the concern of protecting the health of consumers. This may be one of the first times that we act in this direction in such a precise manner. In order to ⁇ this objective, it was indispensable that the competent Minister be that of Public Health. It was necessary to avoid, as far as possible, that the guardianship be exercised by a minister who, by his powers, in particular in economic matters, would find himself in a situation of controller and controlled. Whether the Minister of Agriculture or the Minister of Economy, he would have faced a situation and conflicting interests, even though the importance of economic issues cannot be denied. I would like to point out that some of us remain stuck on these economic interests because they have demanded that the Minister of Agriculture be present today to discuss a question that wants to highlight strictly anything other than economic interests. In the same way, the incompatibilities that will be put in place for officials and scientists who will work in the agency are the guarantee of its independence. The third requirement that we cared for was the involvement of consumers, through the creation of a advisory committee. This approach seems to us to be extremely important, because these consumers are, in fact, the first concerned with the quality of the food chain and that, very often, they are not asked either their opinion or the price they must invest to demand that quality. The review of the draft in committee has further improved this aspect, by adding a new ninth article that creates a permanent contact point for the consumer, both for information and for filing of complaints regarding the food chain. Finally, I hope that the agency will not focus all its activities, nor all its resources, on the question of controls. Ms. Van de Casteele mentioned the limit of controls, stating that, despite our legislation on hormones, which had envisaged broad means, it is necessary to find that the problems persist and that the results of the cell hormones do not correspond to those of veterinarians in the slaughterhouses. The examination of statistics revealed a significant difference. It was the Criminal Investigation Commission that highlighted this point. And I claim that as long as we have not thought about the mode and the type of production, we will not change this problem. And even if we invest legislative and budgetary means, fraud will always exist, because it is the system itself, that is, the mode of production that generates fraud. The other tasks provided for in Article 4 of the bill also seem to me very important, if we want to, in a structural way, improve food security. The entire preventive aspect, in particular, involves a deep reflection on the modes of production and on the types of agriculture that we want to promote. This point will have to be the subject of significant advances, otherwise it would be paradoxical to find ourselves in a situation, forcing us to put everything under intense control. This seems to me impossible, or even perverse, because it is the opposite of what we seek. I dare therefore hope that we will orient ourselves in this direction in the future. The agency, in any case, is the necessary tool for such advancements. That this law appears in the form of a framework law does not bother me excessively. We can rely on the ability of the Minister’s openness and listening to effectively take into account a whole series of remarks that will be made to her. We will therefore vote on this project that we wanted to implement during the formation of the government.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, Mr. Minister, colleagues, when I was a child I learned to read in beautifully illustrated books with roaring titles such as Animals on the Farm. When my children were young, they made acquaintance, mostly through cartoons - a suitable medium of this time - with the same romanticized version of farm life. However, reality has little or nothing to do with this. Our nutrition is the result of too rapid industrial development. Our agriculture is essentially nothing but industrial agriculture. In many cases, the farmers, the new managers of these ⁇ , are not really able to guarantee a constant good quality of these foods even longer. They appear to have no power on all the previous links in the food chain. Even the government knows and has not been able to respond quickly enough to these new trends in recent years. After every new scandal or scandal, the fires were extinguished, without thereby addressing the structures to the bottom. The urgent need for a social debate, beyond the boundaries of industrial agriculture, is undoubted. We will return to this at another time. The present draft law, Mr. Brouns, makes it clear that there may be play space, but that the play time is over. It provides a closing response to a whole series of fires and to a large outgoing fire, in particular the dioxin crisis. Effective and closing, transparent protection of health and consumer interests should be our primary concern. For this purpose, the government must monitor the entire food chain and act as the eyes and nose of the consumer. Controls are no longer intertwined throughout the chain, but are carried out from the river to the fork, with public health at the forefront and not economic importance at the forefront. The unification of the various services should lead to faster and better communication at all levels. Mrs. Minister, it was also one of the important findings of the dioxin commission that communication often leaves something to be desired. In any case, we believe that in this way new large-scale crises can be avoided in the future. Regarding the problem of the removal of DG4 and DG5, Mr. Brouns, it seems that the recommendations sometimes draw other issues than we have included in them. As far as we are concerned, it is clear that all powers relating to public health should also be assigned to Public Health. However, all the powers related to agriculture should remain with agriculture and agriculture should be developed sufficiently to play an important role in the future debate.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that Mr. Vanhoutte speaks clear language and thus indicates that we will soon indeed be sitting with several DG4ers, though after a split. We will continue the fragmentation.

Mr. Brown, I do not agree with this. This bill is clearly the farewell to the traditional trade thinking. We will step out of the fields in which we are now, in which all kinds of professional groups are speaking to each other, and in which veterinarians and bio-engineers fight each other instead of working together. The establishment of this Agency emphasizes the need for cooperation at all levels.

Mr. Vanhoutte, you say that we should leave the box mentality, but you are creating just a few boxes again. The time has come to fully integrate the services DG4 and DG5 and to accommodate them in the Agency. If you think freely, therefore independent of all political directions and purely on the intellectual level, then you may agree with this.

Mr. Brouns, I may not be a free-thinker, but I always meant to think freely. Whatever the plan should be, Mrs. Minister, is that we set up an agency in which the various services are well integrated and able to cooperate in a structured way. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, this is a bill of our generation. The delegated manager is no longer appointed on the basis of political balance exercises and the new manager is appointed in all independence. The latter is not even named primarily on the basis of his knowledge of both national languages, but - and that is the most important thing, Mrs. Van de Casteele - on the basis of his skill. This testifies to a mature mentality and communication form, beyond the language boundaries. We wish to deal with each other on the basis of equality and on the basis of mutual respect and common sense. The commitment in this design to make consumer health prevail over other interests is the best proof that this approach works effectively. The new top manager and senior officials will not be in their seat until their retirement, but must be accountable and may, if necessary, be sanctioned with resignation or with the non-renewal of their mandate. This is an important element to fully guarantee the operationality of the new Agency. With this design, Mrs. Minister, you will soon have the key in your hands to guarantee the safety of our food. In the past, the door was wide open to aflatoxins, antibiotics, dull cows, hormones, and pesticide residues. The Greens are confident that with this key you can permanently close the door. The Parliament will take care to ensure that the last quarries are written quickly.

The government has made the choice to address long-standing and pressing problems. With the present design, we can quickly play the ball. The debate once again proved that a and b are said at the same time. It is warned that the agency should not become a mastodont but at the same time urges an even greater merger. The government has made a clear choice. A closing control of the food chain should be developed. This objective can only be achieved by integrating the various audit and inspection services. The merger of the IVK, the Food Inspectorate, part of the pharmaceutical inspection and the inspection services of DG4 and DG5 regarding food quality and the protection of public health into a whole is in sharp contrast to the current situation of strong fragmentation of powers. Public health services will need to work consistently. Agriculture will also have to do so. Not only closing control is important, but also risk analysis and control. The Agency will have not only an advisory committee but also a scientific committee. Unlike the CIS, the advisory committee will no longer consist only of producers, but also of consumers and federal, regional and community administrations. The scientific committee is composed of national and international experts who have the right to initiate and to comment. In that regard, I find it utterly unjustifiable that, in the context of a few formal cases, such as a para-state A and an advisory committee, it is assumed that this is a flat decoction of the IVK. I cannot agree with this analysis.

Mrs. Minister, if I understand it correctly, will the scientific committee within the agency determine the standards?

Mr. Brown, I really wonder if you will listen to me when I answer. In the five meetings we have had, I have already said three times that the Scientific Committee has an advisory function. A advisory role does not involve setting standards, but rather making suggestions and responding to certain issues. A advice is not a decision.

So they advise and you decide?

I maintain at the level of the Public Health Administration people who will continue to work on the standardization. Of course, the Parliament will decide. If I don’t get a majority, it won’t work. Therefore, it is clear that they have an advisory function and not a decision-making power. I have interrupted the previous speakers very little. If you want me to keep it short, I ask you to continue. I will then come to the control function of the agency. At the end of the committee meeting, Mr. Paque also said that thanks to the extensive discussion, things had become much clearer. This does not mean that you must agree with all options. The essence of the matter concerning control is that we wish to effectively promote self-control at all levels. The discussions on this subject are fully underway. This requires efforts from the sector. Of course, the legislator, the political level, will set boundaries and impose certain things. Self-control is not entirely left to the sector; there will surely be legal standards from the Ministry of Public Health. Subsequently, further construction will be made on the self-control with the control service that will be integrated into the Agency. I have very clearly stated that we should not think in terms of continuing to coexist with the existing structures. Their function now indeed falls within the agency, but the agency will have to provide multidisciplinary control over the self-control form. In addition, I have pointed out that there will also be external control, and this from the beginning. Mr. Paque, I am therefore very surprised that you say that no external control is provided. I have explicitly emphasized that there are two elements of external control. First, we will in any case choose that the ISO standards, with all external control that this implies, also apply to the operation of the agency itself. Second, we also join the system of the European Food Safety Agency. Following the three discussions I have experienced on this subject at European level, I can inform you that after some time – it will of course take a while before the European Agency is a fact – forms of control at European level will also be possible. The next point is the question of why this had to happen urgently. One of the findings that even the previous government made was that one had effectively waited a lot too long to establish the unity structure. As a new government, we had to respond to this. Otherwise, you should have rightly accused us of this. For me, this must be worked urgently. Due to the complexity and the impact on the practical organization, it is effectively necessary to delegate power through a framework law. Everyone agreed to consider the dioxin law urgent. Apparently not this agency. Is this the old logic? If there is money involved, it is quickly said that it is a priority. But if public health is central, then it needs to be timed. This is a wonderful example of the continuation of old practices that we rightly reject. As far as the Scientific Committee is concerned, I agree that this committee can make proposals and that it is required to be consulted on the legislation to be adopted. However, the task of the committee should be limited to providing advice at the level of policy preparation. I take note of the fact that several people continue to ask questions about the integration of part of the pharmaceutical inspection. Mr. Brouns calls for the full integration of the pharmaceutical inspection. Mrs Van de Casteele says that this part does not belong to it.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, either you create a food agency and then leave the pharmaceutical inspection out of it, or you create a food and pharmaceutical inspection and put the entire pharmaceutical inspection under it.

It is politically responsible to bring the aspect of veterinary medicinal products with its potential consequences and the knowledge that exists about them under the Agency. Due to the composition of the current services, a surplus supply to veterinarians is threatened. If you add the total DG4 and DG5, you will, of course, get a larger number. Also in this area, one must know what one wants. I am aware that this will be a difficult matter and that I will have to deal with a lot of resistance. I am absolutely not naive, but I know that this must happen in order to take a step forward. I, together with the government, have taken the step to work on this, knowing that this type of large-scale operations creates an uncertain situation for some people over a certain period of time. However, I cannot bypass that and I will therefore also not engage in concrete speculations about my future plans. Contrary to what is claimed, the concept is perfectly analyzed by outsiders and described in newspaper articles. Our concept is an agency that integrates audits, performs risk analysis and control, involves all sectors, including consumers, the administrations and a separate scientific committee, of which also in the field of prevention a lot can be expected. Regarding financing, I would like to radically reject one judgment, more specifically that of Mr Fournaux, who claims that this is an additional tax for companies. There is nothing to that. We continue to work in the same way, either using budgetary resources, or through existing resources developed in Agriculture and in the IVK to initiate forms of remuneration. I have clearly stated in the Committee on Public Health that there has been a change in the distribution of certain burdens at the level of the IVK and I have announced in the same committee that I will examine, in consultation with the sectors, where any errors in the system lie, so that the necessary adjustments can be made. Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I believe that we have been able to deliver a real parliamentary work in the Committee on Public Health and that noticeable improvements have been made to the draft. I refer both to the reference point for the handling of information and complaints as well as to the better wording of § 6 of Article 6, where, in terms of possible incompatibility due to conflicts of interests, a wording has now been developed that can respond better and more nuanced to the reality. We have not imposed certain things absolutely and undisputedly. There have been substantial improvements, for which I would like to thank Parliament. The element of the reference point was also included in Mr. Brouns’s proposal, and I immediately agreed that this could be even better integrated. Then there is the communication. It is explicitly provided that serious work is being done of communication, both with the outward view and internally between the various ranks that will now need to be brought together in a new way. I see it as a mandate for the Agency to develop an innovative communication policy to the public on this subject. On the element of product liability, as presented here by Mrs. Avontroodt, I promised that this should be further worked. This does not have to be immediately at the level of the formulation of this bill, but rather in the concrete implementation and formulation of a number of matters. The government’s government agreement explicitly stipulated that agricultural products would also be integrated into the product standards law. Until now, this sector has continuously escaped from this. In Europe too, we have noticed that the agricultural lobby has always made sure that such quality requirements do not enter into the legislation. There is, therefore, a clear political decision on this, which I will commit to. The last point concerns the problem of Europe internationally regarding agricultural development, international trade relations and more. Nevertheless, the EU is aware of a number of discharges that its agricultural policy has experienced. If you compare the EU’s positions in Seattle with those of the US and the Miami Group, the EU stands with head and shoulder on top. The EU called for the multifunctionality of agriculture, not just production as such. Furthermore, the EU also places a much greater emphasis on animal welfare, something that has never really taken place in the serious economic debates. With this I came to the main points, Mr. Speaker.

Dec. 14, 1999 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The Committee on Finance and Budget examined this Bill on Tax and Diverse Provisions during its meetings on 7 and 8 December. In his presentation, the Minister of Finance first confirmed the restoration of the indexation of tax rates from the 1999 income, with full integration into the professional pre-count rate, from the 2000 income. It also provided a projection of the complete dismantling of the complementary crisis contribution in four years. The Minister then outlined and commented on the measures contained in the project, namely: 1. the reduction of the crisis supplementary contribution to 2% for the 1999 income, when the overall taxable income does not exceed 850 000 francs; 2. the reduction, respectively, of 1% and 2% for the income of 2000, when the taxable income does not exceed 850 000 or is between 850 000 and 1 250 000 francs; a reduction, for a period of 3 years, of 21 to 6% of the VAT rate applicable to four sectors of services with high labour intensity, which are the renovation and repair of private housing between 5 and 15 years, the repair of bicycles, shoes and leather articles, the repair of clothing and household linen; the increase from 345 to 450 francs per day of the deductible cost of custody of children under 3 years of age, as well as the increase from 10 000 to 13 000 francs of the exemption for other children under 3 years of age; the abolition of registration rights earned in the course of the naturalization procedure; 6. exemption from the payment of the professional prepayment on the remuneration of workers employed on board ships flying the flag of a Member State of the European Union, for the commercial naval and dragging sector. The Minister estimates that at the end of the legislature, the total of these measures will represent an annual tax reduction of the order of eighty billion. During the general discussion, speakers welcomed the rapidity with which the chapter of the government statement on reducing tax pressure was implemented; the concise and legibility of the project was also highlighted. Criticisms have been raised on the progressive mode of suppression, chosen for the complementary crisis contribution, which, according to the speakers, could have been simpler, faster and less discriminatory. Several Commissioners have called for greater consideration of child-related charges, and not just custody costs for children under three years of age. The Minister did not exclude to go in this direction on the occasion of the tax reform and also mentioned the possibility of simplifying and expanding the measures in favor of a number of proximity services rendered to individuals. With regard to construction VAT, many speakers expressed the desire to take additional measures for new buildings and social housing. These speakers referred to the proposals they submitted in this regard. The Minister undertook to carry out the budget evaluation of certain measures and to restart the debate. One commissioner insisted that price control should take place in sectors that will benefit from a reduction in the VAT rate. Another complains the lack of measures in favour of horeca and hairstyle. The advantage granted to the maritime sector has resulted in numerous interventions, some wishing to extend the measure to towing, others expressing their disagreement with the very principle of this kind of derogatory measures, which could extend to other sectors. A commissioner regrets the postponement, until the tax reform comes into effect, of the increase in the taxable minimum income. Several proposals were attached to the project. The proposals of Ms. Trees Pieters, by Mr. Borginon, and by Mrs Van de Casteele, as well as by Mr. Bultinck concerns ways of reducing VAT in the construction sector. The proposal of Mr. Dirk Pieters et Leterme is related to the deductibility of childcare costs. For the presentation of these four proposals, I allow myself to refer to the written report, especially since the committee decided to postpone the vote. During the discussion of the articles, eleven amendments were submitted, among which seven technical amendments were adopted. The amended bill was adopted by nine votes for and five abstentions.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you. I regret that mr. The Minister could not be present at your presentation – which, in other words, did not pose any problem for the reading of the report, given that this is the commission’s mission to the House. However, I cannot allow the debate at the moment in the absence of a representative of the government. Therefore, the session is suspended. The session is suspended at 10.12. - De vergadering wordt geschorst om 10.12 h. The session will be resumed at 10.16. - De vergadering wordt hervat om 10.16 h.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Mr. Colleagues, your committee examined, on 8 December 1999, the provisions of the program law on which it had to rule. In his introductory speech, Mr. The Minister of Telecommunications of Enterprises and Public Participations explained to us that the Post is on the verge of undergoing important changes: on 1 January 2003, the postal sector will be liberalized. From this date, all products and services can be offered by anyone. An industrial plan called Master plan is being developed at the Post and the board of directors has decided to transform the company into a public law company, in order to be able to carry out a capital increase and make the necessary investments. It is of course that the entire transaction must be able to be carried out within the framework of the law of 21 March 1991 relating to the reform of certain public enterprises. However, a number of changes are needed in order to be as flexible as possible. First, the transformation into anonymous public law company is regulated in Chapter IX of the draft law; it can however be carried out by a royal decree deliberated in a council of ministers. Secondly, we differ from the fairly rigid composition of the board of directors. Thus, the members of the Management Board are not legal members of the Management Board and the number of members of the Management Board must no longer necessarily be equal to twice that of the members of the Management Board. All these reforms are necessary so that, as the modern management techniques want, the delegated administrator can surround himself with a team instead of ⁇ ining college-type structures. Third, the Board of Directors will be renewed on the occasion of the transformation. Fourth, for the same reasons of flexibility, there will be a derogation from Articles 19 and 20 of the 1991 Act on the Functioning of the Management Committees. Fifth, the terms of information, verification and control may also be specified in the statutes. Finally, sixth, the members and the chairman of the board of directors, as well as the delegated administrator being appointed by the King, may only be revoked by royal decree deliberated in the council of ministers. On the occasion of the general discussion, Mr. Van Eetvelt notes that it turns out that the opinion of the Finance Inspector had not been transmitted to the State Council. The speaker emphasizes that under the proposed provisions, the government could remove the management committee as an organ. According to the Minister, the normal procedure was followed: all observations made by the State Council were answered. In any case, the opinion of the Finance Inspector will be distributed I hope it was - before the vote in plenary session. With regard to the management board, it tends to form a team surrounding the delegated administrator, as this solution better meets the requirements of the management of a company whose turnover reaches 70 to 80 billion francs. During the discussion and voting of articles, articles 8 to 10 did not give rise to any observations and were successively adopted by eight votes and three abstentions. All articles submitted to the committee are therefore adopted by eight votes and three abstentions.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, first of all, I congratulate both rapporteurs and the services of the Chamber for their excellent report. Mr. Minister, in the general policy guidelines of the Ministry of Finance for the financial year 2000 on page 6 are found the direct effects on the income of 1999 of the taxpayers. According to the note, the taxes will be reduced by a total of 11.4 billion francs, of which 8.4 billion francs as a result of the reintroduction of the indexation of the tax scales. This decision was already implemented by the previous government. This means that the tax reduction to which this government goes is only 3 billion francs or less than 0.2% of the estimated direct taxes, estimated at a total of 1 587,4 billion francs for the 2000 budget. Only after some insistence has the Minister admitted that this measure, which is central to both the policy note and the draft law, was already planned and implemented by the previous government. Thus, it is impossible for this puppy to overtake the new government’s hat. Evidence, by the way, can be provided easily. This bill does not contain any article to introduce or modify this measure. Therefore, you will also notice that we will not vote on this. It actually has something perverse, if I can use that word, to announce as the first priority for the fiscal policy to be carried out a measure that was already decided by the previous government. Even more perverse is your underlying reasoning, Mr. Minister. You put indexing so explicitly at the center because another government with the CVP, you think, would have taken a new decision to revoke the decision to reintroduce the indexing of the previous government again. It is true that once before an extension of non-indexation was approved, but the context is now entirely different. We know that as CVP like no other. The deficit was reduced in the 1990s from 7% to 3% or less. There is still a need for budgetary orthodoxy, but this no longer requires repair operations. So for all clarity: the CVP would in no case have repealed indexing, because the need for it no longer exists. You show up with other people’s feathers in terms of the measures taken and you do so before a government that has sanctioned the budget and thus gave you budgetary space. We did not expect gratitude, but at least the intellectual honesty and courtesy to acknowledge that we have recovered the dirty work that you are now sitting on roses, and that we have introduced reindexing as soon as the finances endured it. In addition, I would like to warn you to make sure that your misplaced triumphalism over tax reindexing does not return to you as a boomerang. A too lax budgetary policy sometimes requires correction quicker than one expects. I refer at that point to the budget debate, where I have developed the argument that the over-picked margin of about 30 billion francs or 0.3% of GDP may not be dramatic if it is limited to a one-time experiment in 2000, but that it would be fatal to repeat this three or four years in a row. I note that the Minister of Budget at least does not contradict me on this point and himself also indicates that the budgetary margin in 2001 will be much more limited. Nevertheless, on the current band, beautiful and fun things are set in the foreground. So many promises are formulated without a budgetary space to finance them all. There is no multiannual plan in which the implementation of the promises is budgeted and programmed. What are they doing? Especially promise a lot, mistake spraying, bring forward beautiful principles, but any debate about it refer to later. Worse, as you announce that you are resolving a problem, you will first make it a little bigger. The best example of this is the tax discrimination of spouses and cohabitants. Although you prescribe the principle of a neutral tax treatment of the forms of society, in your first concrete fulfillment of the government agreement you increase the discrimination of the married. In implementing the Government Agreement, the Ministry of Finance will therefore develop a general revision of the personal tax, which will be based on the following principles: The following principle is mentioned literally: ... the development of a tax system neutral in relation to the chosen form of society; the discrimination against married, cohabiting and single persons will be eliminated. Nothing reflects to me so strikingly the difference between word and deed of this government as the comparison of this passage with the draft law. The new government considers it necessary in the present bill to deepen the tax discrimination of married persons against cohabitants. Her principles of a neutral tax system for all forms of society are simply overlooked. Our main commentary on the present bill is located here. How can it be that in the government agreement the promise is made to eliminate tax discrimination, while the government in its first tax draft is doing the exact opposite? It further increases the tax disadvantage of being married by allowing cohabitants with the same income to reduce the crisis tax faster. The government is using an inadequate phase for the abolition of the crisis tax. There is a lot of uncertainty about the continuation; this we have even been able to notice during the discussion at the cautious tone of the minister. In this draft, a reduction of the crisis tax is already achieved, but not yet abolished. Mr. Minister, you received from your own party the necessary resistance on this point. The abolition of the additional crisis contribution would be too slow. This step-by-step abolition, linked to the collectively taxable income, is not a simplification of the legislation. Colleague Leterme had an excess of right when he warned you. There are indeed judgments, which indicate that tax reductions should be reflected not only in the cohiers, but also in the corporate advance tax. So far, this plan does not take this into account. In conclusion of this section, I would like to ask you, Mr. Minister, if you had not realized this operation better in one time, therefore not necessarily this year. It could even be within one, two, or three years, if this happened according to a multi-year plan. Before voting on this article, I would like to explain the following. I have considered submitting an amendment to postpone this plan until 2001 and then remove this additional crisis tax at once. However, because of the political game, this would give the impression that we do not grant it to the beneficiaries in 2000, and that is, of course, not the case. Therefore, we have opted to accept, as a second best solution, the logic of the phasing, but insofar as the tax discrimination of married persons is corrected. Therefore, we have submitted our amendment again in the plenary session. We do not make ourselves illusions about the mood on this subject, but we wish to transmit an important signal. Indeed, the reduction of the crisis tax rate takes place on the basis of the collective taxable income. Only the spouses pay taxes based on this jointly taxable income. Let us take the example of two people with a low income, or a pension of 800 000 francs. The Government states in the memorandum of explanation that these incomes are for its low incomes. If two cohabitants earn 800,000 francs each, they can count on a discount of 1% for 1999 and for 2000 they already have a discount of 2%. When two married men earn 800,000 francs each, they cannot count on anything. Only if there is sufficient budgetary space in 2001 would they receive a 1% discount for the first time. At that time, the residents are no longer paying anything. Instead of the abolition of tax discrimination, as she so beautifully writes in her government agreement, the government thus increases the tax discrimination. This is very harmful to the married. If our amendment is not approved, we will abstain from voting on this article. The CVP considers it very positive that the government pays the necessary attention to the deductibility for childcare. The CVP, by the way, shares the view of the government that the tax deduction for out-of-school childcare of children over three years of age should also be allowed in the future. It is high time that the non-minor costs of out-of-school childcare are also tax favored. The adoption of a child is not limited to the first three years. As also suggested in the bill proposed by colleague Leterme and myself, the government – at least as it promises – will by royal decree provide for an increase in the tax deductibility of the costs of authorized childcare. The new royal decree, on which no date had yet been glued, would increase the deductible amount per day from 345 to 450 francs. However, if this royal decree is missing, we promise you, Mr. Minister, that we will put our bill on the agenda again. We could have played the game to vote on that aspect of our bill already. After all, an approved law always gives more certainty than a announced royal decree. How would the majority vote on this? I can guess: once again, colleague Tavernier would be the first to speak and take the position of a typical majority member, against which he so fulminated in the opposition. He apparently had his wild hair cut. The CVP, and not only it, finds it, by the way, inappropriate that all kinds of royal decrees still to be issued be included in the explanation of a bill. It creates the false feeling that these measures have already been decided. The public may be very deceived by this false feeling, especially when we know that these provisions of those royal decrees have a much higher budgetary impact than the provisions of the bill. Now that with so much poeha the royal decree is announced, it must follow very soon. In addition to the announced increase of the deduction for the authorised childcare, the draft law expressly states that the base amount of the tax-free sum for the unauthorised childcare will be increased from 10 000 to 13 000 francs. In indexed terms, this means an increase of 13 000 to 16 000 francs, an increase of 3 000 francs in the tax-free amount. This 3 000 francs is ultimately only equivalent to a tax reduction of 3 000 francs twenty-five percent or 750 francs, since the tax-free amount is counted at the lowest rate of personal tax. 165 000 families with a total of 185 000 young children were covered by this less favourable tax regime for the reporting year 1998. For them – and this together with colleague of Weddingen, the commissioner who spoke for your party and is even the reporter of this draft law – we find the effort made in this draft law too low, for two reasons: First, the already existing tax deduction for non-interesting childcare, which for an indexed sum of 16 000 francs comes to a tax advantage of 4 000 francs, is now already far too low compared to the deduction for the approved reception. When the child stays 250 days, the normal number of working days, at an authorized child care facility, the tax savings are immediately 250 times 450 francs or 45 000 francs, at a tax rate of 40%. Second, the increase to 450 francs, which we also want, further increases the gap between the two regimes. In order to apply the benefit of the increase from 345 to 450 francs for the approved childcare, say 10 500 francs, also to the unapproved childcare, the indexed tax-free amount must be increased by 42 000 francs. The basic amount should then be 50 000 francs. The uncertainty that we as people’s representatives have about the implementation of the announced royal decree, to increase the amount from 345 to 450 francs, could not be completely removed during the committee meeting. Consequently, we deliberately withdrew our bill in committee to put it back on the agenda later. At that time, we will amend, through a bill, the tax applicable amount for authorised childcare and also register an increase in the tax-free amount for non-autorised childcare to 50 000 francs. At that time we will also include a provision that makes out-of-school childcare for children aged 3 to 12 tax deductible. We will therefore abstain from voting on this point. What I just noted in the chapter on unrecognized childcare, in particular that there is only an announcement of an uncertain royal order, also applies to the experiments decided by Europe to lower VAT for some labor-intensive services. The difference is that a timing is prescribed here, because Europe imposes it. In any case, this measure is not included in this bill. In the bill, we note that there is no longer a VAT reduction for new construction, however a liberal battle point when VLD and PRL were in opposition. Now that they have an excellent opportunity to reduce the VAT in new buildings, they do not. Even at this point of battle, colleague Desimpel does not even get the beginning of satisfaction. Although we are satisfied with the new study assignment given to the Plan Bureau, we expressly request that the study not so much investigate a general reduction – we already know those conclusions – but limit itself to the scope of the Trees Pieters bill. It is only the first family housing in the social and private modest housing construction. The issue of the tax treatment of maritime transport also had hilaric highlights. In that regard, I refer to an amendment by representatives of five of the six government parties, which, by the way, removed the approval of the CVP and the VU, aiming to include in the drawing services in the draft, in addition to the merchant shipping and bagging sectors. The five ruling parties were VLD, PRL, SP, Agalev and Ecolo. Only the PS, previously so often disguised by Mr. Verhofstadt, had not co-signed the amendment and the result was that the five aforementioned parties became involved. The traction services were again displaced to a possible KB. Mr. Minister, I say to you once again that when you are satisfied with the issuance of this royal decree, we will confront you with a bill that, by the way, has already been drafted for all certainty. Finally, Mr. Minister, we would like to clarify now why we voted against the free naturalization in the committee. First, the so-called taxes on naturalizations are merely fees for benefits provided by the government. In that regard, Mr Borginon correctly pointed out why you do not make the name change free of charge. Second, - and this is the most important thing - charging a low cost is a certain brake. You can compare the free of charge of naturalizations to the distribution of free train tickets: everyone accepts it, although they may later not use it or even need it, but it is free and you never know if it may not even be useful. Such practices regarding naturalizations are out of evil, especially when one knows that the burden of this is carried mainly by the already overloaded parks. A sudden increase in their workload can be missed as chest pain and the population too, by the way. I ask you, Mr. Minister, not to miss the immense efforts made after the Dutroux period. However, I must admit that, compared to the design on the naturalizations, its free of charge in this context is only a detail. In conclusion, I can say that the bill is a poor beast. What does the bill look like without all the unnecessary fringes? What fiscal measures are actually legally determined, naturalizations and De Post left aside? Well, I will summarize them: the increase of the tax-free sum by 3 000 francs for unrecognized childcare, the partial reduction of the crisis tax and the non-depositing of some debited corporate advantages in the bagger and merchant shipping sector. That is already. Mr. Minister, in the budget for 2000 this means a budgetary effort of 135 million for the unrecognized childcare - that is a self-calculation, assuming 160 000 children under the three years prior to the year of accrual 1998 a ratio of 750 francs - and 300 million for the crisis tax - that is the figure you gave yourself. Abstraction from the corporate tax in the bagger and merchant shipping sector, which benefits the employers, it is established that Belgian natural persons must pay only 435 million less taxes than before. In addition to these articles, the draft in its explanation also contains general and special intentions. The special intentions will be regulated by royal decrees and include the authorized childcare, the trawling and the VAT reduction for labor-intensive services. The uncertainty regarding the finality and entry into force of these royal decrees should encourage the government to be more cautious. Also the State Council is of the opinion that the memory of explanation to this bill is much wider than what the bill regulates. Compared to previous program laws, it was not supplemented with the yearly necessary technical adjustments requested by various administrations. The dream world created by newspeak and positive communication remains intact. Something with little to pack the body into a good project, that is the message of the shining example Tony Blair, who seems to spend more on advertising for his active welfare state than Coca Cola for its product. Mr. Slangen also deserves a nice money to teach the prime minister the newspeak. George Orwell, of course, could not predict that the newspeak in Belgium would not be introduced in 1984, but only in 1999. Fortunately, however, the ministers can contribute to the new communication message. Bert Anciaux gave it a great piece of steel. When he concluded an agreement bad for Flanders, he later declared: I am proud of this agreement. The present design is sick in the same bed: a lot of blade, little wool!

The draft law that we are examining contains, as well as the explanation of the reasons, many positive points. I mean speaking of the reindexation of tax rates, even though this matter does not appear in the body of the law. This is stated in the explanation of the reasons. The discussion of who has the merit of indexing the tax rates between the old and the new government is over-year, because the merit of it apparently belongs to the taxpayer, who has collaborated in the sanitation of the finances, otherwise poorly managed for decades. So it is rather about this mismanagement that the question is, especially since the merit may not belong to all citizens either. In fact, not all of them have necessarily contributed to the extent of their income. In any case, I am pleased that the barems are re-indexed, regardless of whether this measure is included in the law or not. And I am convinced that the taxpayers themselves will agree to say that the most important thing is there and not elsewhere. As positive measures, I will cite the gradual dismantling of the exceptional crisis contribution, the increase in the coverage of childcare expenses, the reduction of VAT on activities with a high workforce rate and the free naturalization. However, Mr. Minister, what obscures the picture of this law is Article 4. I can’t help but draw a closer link between this article 4 and the recent events around the WTO and Seattle. The ideology gravitating around the WTO is liberalization, because it would always create wealth. However, once the market is completely liberalized and companies are exposed to international competition, they quickly come to seek aid from public authorities because subjected to this international competition, they claim to no longer be able to get out of it. The State hears them and then makes them some gifts amounting to a few tens or hundreds of millions, tax gifts since, thanks to this law, the professional pre-count will no longer have to be held. In addition, another law provides for the exemption of social contributions and this, for the benefit of the same companies, of the same economic sector. In conclusion, the liberalization of this sector impoverishes the public authorities, as well as a part of the taxpayers, those who must supplement these taxes that will no longer return. I also regret that the amendment that was submitted, although it took a different form, aims to broaden the scope of these measures, which are completely contrary to the usual discourse on tax harmonisation. On the weekend, one tries to negotiate in Helsinki a tax harmonization from the top, or in any case, not privileging multinational companies, a fact that allows states to collect their debt. And a few days later, we vote a law that goes exactly against the principles we have defended. Our neighbors, especially the Netherlands and Luxembourg, also practice tax dumping. It is also quite extraordinary to find that it is among the countries with the strongest economic integration, that is, the Benelux, that there is also the strongest fiscal competition. I would like to point out this because it seems to me to be an ineptitude to have always postponed the tax part in the major international treaties. Even today, many are those who, like me, advocate for a social Europe, for an environmental Europe. If some progress towards harmonization is observed on these topics, when it comes to taxation, things block each time, suggesting that this will be the residual field of dumping policies from one country to another. To attract ⁇ and economic activities at home, it will always be on the tax competition that will be played. Even though this measure, as well as the indexation of tax rates, had been decided by the previous government, the current government, in the logic of the continuity of power, applies a decision that had been taken before and that could have been worse. Indeed, at some point, some proposals made by the administration itself and, apparently, with the consent of the cabinet, were oriented towards entirely illegal provisions. Let us rejoice after all. This measure will at least have the advantage of being legal but it will result in a few hundred million coming in addition, for example, to the reduction of 2.5 billion VAT on cut flowers, measure taken a few years ago already in the name of competitiveness, and the 50 billion tax exemption planned for the coordination centers. I therefore do not agree at all with the point of view of companies, groupings of companies or employer federations who complain that Belgium has become a tax hell. I trust you, Mr. Reynders, to pass on the questions I wanted to ask Mr. Reynders. by Daems. Even though the two or three articles concerning La Poste have not been discussed in our committee, I wanted to ask Minister Daems about the news that has broken the chronicle in recent days, namely the loss of 6,000 jobs in La Poste. This figure appeared in the press without, according to him, the general administrator himself advancing it. I do not know where this number comes from. It might have been interesting to know the order of magnitude in job losses. I was surprised to hear this information when, from my own experience, that of my colleagues and many citizens, one cannot say that the Post service is ⁇ performing for the moment. We know a lot of problems in the distribution of mail, late or poorly distributed, due to lack of staff, it seems. Moreover, not so long ago, we heard here interpellations addressed to the competent minister of the former government about paid leave of the staff of La Poste, where hundreds of hours were to be recovered, so much so that some had almost a year of paid leave to take, which they could never do because they would find themselves at the retirement age before. In this context, it seems to me at least curious that the staff of La Poste is reduced by 6,000 units. I would like the Minister, in his response, to be able to give us the top of the situation. To conclude, even if I have some criticism to formulate on this bill, it is certain that we will vote for it because the positive aspect represents 90% for only 10% of regrets.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, the present bill implements the government agreement regarding the steady decrease of fiscal and para-fiscal pressure over the duration of the legislature. In the 2000 budget, total tax and parafiscal revenues will decrease. This reduction will benefit taxpayers. Thanks to the measures of the present draft, they will save 11.4 billion francs on the revenues of 1999 and 24.5 billion francs on the revenues of 2000. The VLD welcomes the fact that the government not only wants to pursue a strict budgetary policy but also pays priority attention to the development of an active welfare state. This active welfare state must, on the one hand, prevent people from falling out of the boat and, on the other hand, ensure that everyone with a high level of social protection can make a creative contribution to society. Because the government wants to ⁇ this goal through a general reduction in labour burden and a prudent budgetary policy, the wish list on fiscal measures of the government agreement cannot be completed at once. The VLD is ⁇ pleased that the government will promptly take a number of specific fiscal measures in addition to the necessary global tax reform announced for the second half of the governing term. A first specific measure concerns the full indexation of the tax scales. In the past, the VLD has repeatedly criticized the deindexing of tax scales. I would like to repeat its strength lines. The introduction of indexation was decided under the participation of liberal government and was first applied in the counterfeit year 1989 by the law-Grootjans. The law containing fiscal, financial and various provisions adopted in execution of the 1993 budget suspended the indexation. At that time, we were advised that the suspension would only apply for a maximum of 4 years. However, mandatory decisions provided for an extension of the deindexation for the record years 1998 and 1999. The freezing of the indexation of the tax scales and its cumulative effect has already cost the taxpayer more than 200 billion francs since the reporting year 1994. In addition, the suspension of indexation put the tax reform of 1988 on the slope. This tax reform was the result of years of struggle to recognize the principle of indexation of tax scales in tax legislation. The adverse effects of inflation on the tax pressure of non-indexing of tax scales have been known. Inflation automatically pushes all taxpayers into higher tax scales, so that non-indexing is actually a multi-year plan to increase the tax burden each year. The rate of increase depends on the rate of inflation. Such a measure has not only budgetary but also political implications. Let me start with the budgetary implications. The income from tax increases is uncertain because future inflation is uncertain. I cannot understand that the previous government has chosen a technique of taxation that makes income dependent in a very extreme way on the inflation rate that is difficult to control because it is largely determined abroad. The political implication relates to the Parliament. The Constitution stipulates that parliament must decide on the tax rates. With a deindexation, the Parliament is put out of play. However, the technique was very attractive. One had to appear before parliament only once to obtain a tax increase. The deindexing of tax scales has had significant implications for the support of our economy. If an inflation shock occurs abroad, the tax pressure increases in our country. This is not passively undertaken. A substantial part of it is diverted in the form of higher gross wages. This results in the competitiveness of the Belgian economy deteriorating automatically. The deindexing of tax scales also has a regressive character. Inflation presses taxpayers into increasingly higher tax scales with higher rates. This effect is greatest for lower and middle-income groups that have not yet reached the scale of the maximum rate; the happy ones that are already there cannot end up in even more unfavorable scales. If the deindexation had been ⁇ ined for a sufficient period of time, everyone would eventually have reached the highest tax scales. This means that the longer the deindexation is ⁇ ined, the progressivity of the tax system decreases. From the income for the year 2000, the taxable person will be able to feel the effects of reindexing the tax scales through the corporate advance fee for a full year. With the reintroduction of a full reindexation, taxpayers will pay less taxes for an amount of 8.4 billion for the 1999 income and 17.5 billion for the 2000 income. The VLD can only rejoice over this, but hopes that the perverse effects resulting from years of deindexation on the occasion of a global fiscal reform will be considered and eliminated in their entirety. A second measure is the gradual abolition of the hated crisis contribution or the tax on the tax that, understandably, has laid bad blood on the taxpayers, especially on the pensioners. The VLD thus considers it just that the taxpayer can be the first to reap the fruits of the heavy efforts imposed on him during the past years. Following the budgetary control of 1993, the then government decided to introduce an additional crisis tax in the form of 3 opt-outs on all income taxes. Thus, an effort was demanded from the workers, the self-employed, the freelancers and the companies; also the income from assets was addressed. Part of the proceeds from the opt-outs were directly transferred to the social security of workers and self-employed persons. In the current state of affairs, this contribution costs the taxpayer more than 30 billion francs each year. The Government now proposes, in accordance with the provisions of the Government Agreement, to begin with the abolition of the crisis tax, starting with the income for the year 1999; initially the measure would apply to the natural persons with the lowest incomes. For the revenues for the year 1999, the crisis contribution would be reduced to 2% when the combined taxable income does not exceed 850 000 francs. For the income for the year 2000, the crisis contribution shall be reduced to 1% if the combined taxable income does not exceed this amount and to 2% if it is between 850 000 and 1 250 000 francs. Subsequently, within the framework of budgetary balance, the Government will propose to further reduce the crisis contribution annually until it is finally reduced to zero for all income groups from 2003 onwards. We expect that this will happen. The gradual abolition will reduce the tax burden at a cross-speed rate by an amount equal to the current cost, 30 billion a year. The VLD is pleased that the government announces the gradual abolition of the crisis tax. However, we would have liked to see that the removal would be carried out faster. However, we understand the budgetary cricket lines of the policy. The government agreement also envisaged an improvement in the tax advantages for children. In the present draft law, the basic increase of the tax-free minimum is increased from 13 000 to 16 000 francs. It is also announced that by royal decree the ceiling of 345 francs deduction per day of reception per child will be raised from 2000 to 450 francs. The actual maximum amount currently payable for childcare under a recognized childcare initiative is 623 francs. This measure does not come a day too early. Together, the two measures will result in a tax reduction of approximately 1 billion francs for revenues for 1999. The VLD welcomes these two initiatives. However, we will take some initiatives to increase the tax deductibility of the costs associated with all possible forms of childcare. Child care, including of children over three years of age, should be considered as a professional cost and its deductibility should also be considered in those terms. In my view, this should not be limited to linking the deductibility to recognised reception initiatives, since these initiatives now offer few solutions for parents with irregular or long working hours or for parents working in a team system. We will ensure that this is taken into account in the context of the global fiscal reform. With regard to the reduction of the VAT rates for certain labour-intensive services anticipated in implementation of a European directive on the subject, the Government chose to apply this reduced VAT rate in Belgium to repair works on bicycles, shoes and clothing and repair and renovation works relating to buildings between five and fifteen years old. The VLD considers the positive effect of the government on the possibility of subjecting a number of labor-intensive services to the reduced VAT rate. Certain sectors could, of course, be expected to be disadvantaged because they are not eligible for this preferential measure. It mainly concerns the catering sector and the hairdressing sector. The European Finance Ministers have spent a lot of time on Portugal’s request to also grant restaurants a reduced VAT rate. Portugal in 1996 lowered the VAT rate for restaurants from 17 to 12%, which was illegal. In fact, EU law stipulates that only reduced VAT rates that were in force in 1992 can continue to exist. Finally, it was agreed that the Portuguese favourite regime for restaurants could continue to exist without, however, adding the hospitality industry to the list of reduced rates. However, the VLD hopes that certain measures will be taken to compensate for the benefits of the sectors that cannot benefit from VAT reductions. This reduction again means a tax deduction income, thus an advantage for the taxpayer, of two billion francs. The Government also proposes to exempt employers in the bagger and merchant shipping sectors from the obligation to deposit the retained corporate advance fee to the state treasury. This measure may be extended to shipping by a royal decree consulted in the Council of Ministers. These are measures that are possible in implementation of a Community, in this context European, Directive on public aid in maritime transport. They allow the Member States of the Union, by way of derogation from the general rules on public aid, to make public funds available in order to increase the competitiveness of the maritime sector. The VLD believes that the proposed measure is crucial to maintain the competitiveness of the sector. Furthermore, the possible extension to traction, which came on, among others, a liberal initiative, is essential for the Belgian traction sector, which still has more than 600 employees in Belgium and which plays a key role in our economy. In summary, we believe that the proposed measures of this Tax Program Act constitute a good initiative for the full implementation of the government agreement in this area, which we will vigilantly monitor.

Mr. Speaker, in the Committee on Justice, the Minister of Justice has even submitted an amendment to remove certain articles in the law on naturalizations, referring to the fact that they are being discussed today in the plenary session. This poses us a big problem. We are armed in the Justice Committee to conduct a debate on the free acquisition of citizenship. The Minister announces that he will not allow this debate to take place there. Since this aspect is included in the Tax Program Act, he believes that the debate can take place in the plenary session today. According to the Rules of Procedure of the Chamber, committee members should be given the opportunity to participate in the plenary debate. I therefore ask that the work be organized in such a way that we have the opportunity to express our views on this in plenary session. We are currently discussing the Tax Program Law. This course of affairs creates an important precedent. The Committee on Justice deals with a law amended by the Government and discussed at the same time in the plenary session.

Mr Vandeurzen, we are currently discussing a bill. Amendments by members or by the Government may be submitted to the plenary session. One of the amendments concerns the free of charge of some acts. I did not know that this issue would be addressed in a committee meeting that is taking place right now.

We did not know that either.

If possible, I would like to conclude this debate this morning. A further discussion of the articles of the draft law may be followed in order to give the members the opportunity to express their views. Members may also ask for the word to defend their amendments. However, I cannot know what hic et nunc is being discussed in the Committee for Justice.

Mr. Speaker, I have the impression that one does not yet fully realize that the same text was proposed twice, namely in the Tax Program Act and in the draft amendment to the Code of Belgian Nationality. At the last meeting of the Finance Committee, it was still unclear who would deal with this matter. Eventually, it was discussed in the Committee on Finance. The members of the Justice Committee, who normally do not deal with tax matters, have also prepared this text, but are now being sent with a knock in the rope.

Mr. Speaker, a government amendment to the draft on citizenship aims to remove Articles 13, 14 and 15. This eliminates possible double employment.

Nearly identical arrangements were repeated in two different projects. Almost identical because, in commission, I completed the tax project by removing not only the registration right, but also the stamp right. This issue has been debated extensively in the Finance Committee. It was about removing registration and stamp fees in naturalization procedures and we had the choice between the Finance Commission and the Justice Commission. The report of these discussions is presented today in the plenary session. The debate can continue. If members of the Justice Committee wish to comment on the subject, they are welcome. But it seems to me appropriate that the Minister of Justice removes from the text on naturalizations the provisions that will be adopted in the coming days within the framework of the tax program law.

A single law is sufficient on the same subject.

Even though it is a reduction in taxes, I do not ask that it be voted twice.

Mr. Speaker, today we discuss the bill containing tax and various provisions. In some ways, the Flemish Bloc welcomes the fact that the government is willing to make efforts to reduce the fiscal and parafiscal pressure. The current and future economic expansion of this country is currently hindered by excessive fiscal and parafiscal pressure. This results in the fact that most of the wage costs are borne by the employer and that a Belgian worker receives a relatively lower net wage than the workers of the surrounding countries with which we trade. In terms of tax burden, Belgium ranks fourth on the list of OECD countries. Of every 100 francs a Belgian earns, he must immediately give 56 francs to the State and 10 to 15 francs in the form of VAT, excise duties and registration duties. I have a few comments on concrete aspects of this design. The draft includes some separate fiscal measures, which should allow the government to increase its fiscal popularity before the end of the year. This is, of course, well taken into account in times when Santa does his round. As part of the reduction of fiscal pressure, we support the Minister’s measure to re-index the tax scales, after an interruption since 1992. Mr. Pieters pointed out that this measure is in a way the result of a decision of the previous government. The figures have shown that this perverse mechanism of not indexing the tax scales has cost the taxpayer about 200 billion more since 1994, mainly through tax contributions from Flanders. I call this a perverse mechanism because the man in the street, nor the parliament, was involved at the time. The Minister may still remember this following his request to the then Minister of Finance, Mr. Viseur. In principle, we agree with the gradual abolition of the crisis contribution. However, the way this happens can be improved. The reduction of the crisis tax for some income categories is contrary to the government’s promise to ⁇ tax simplification through the fiscal reform. Moreover, this method is not very transparent. In the past, the crisis tax was always levied on the combined taxable income. The abolition of the crisis tax through the proposed income categories is detrimental to married people compared to cohabitants. Since their joint taxable income is higher, the spouses can only enjoy the benefit of avoiding the crisis tax at a later date. According to the proposed maximum limits, cohabitants are released from their crisis contribution in a few years, while married people can only enjoy a 1% discount on the crisis contribution. Instead of doing something from the beginning to address the tax discrimination of the married, the government will increase the discrimination even more. We also know that you will announce a tax reform by October 2000, but if married couples are treated in the same way, this predicts little good. Reduction of VAT for labour-intensive services. The Flemish Bloc can support this measure. In addition, the Vlaams Blok submitted a bill to reduce the VAT rate from 21% to 6% for the renovation of buildings. This VAT reduction applies to both materials and working hours. However, the current bill is limited to the materials. However, new construction, unlike the category of renovation and repair, remains excluded from the reduced VAT rate. We can only regret this, especially because this sector is experiencing an increasing number of bankruptcies. The measure is introduced for the renovation of houses that are at least five years old. Within the framework of the labour-stimulating measures for the construction sector, the elimination of black labour and fraud and the promotion of the return of families to the city centers, this measure is a good incentive, especially given that between 1984 and 1993 about 400 000 homes were built. Increased tax deduction for childcare. This measure is a small initiative to make childcare taxally more attractive. However, we believe that the problem of childcare should be considered in a broader context. We must not be misunderstood. The Flemish Bloc is advocating solid, affordable and high-quality childcare. However, we believe that it is the duty of the government to support the family visa. In the vision of the Flemish Bloc, parents should have the choice to take care of the reception and education of their children themselves or to entrust these tasks in part to reception centers. Where this bill provides for an improved tax regime for the deduction of expenses for childcare, the financial inequality of parents who consciously choose to self-educate their children is strengthened, not to mention a tax discrimination. We are therefore of the opinion that the government, in addition to the resources it spends on child care by third parties, can also compensate the parents who themselves work on the care of their crust. Consequently, the government should also work to introduce an educator’s salary in the form of the status of home-working parent. I would also like to point out that the proposed tax measure is limited as it only applies to children up to three years of age. It is as if the problem of childcare disappears after passing through the kindergarten. The increase of the tax deduction from 10 000 to 13 000 francs also does not constitute a real break with the past and is therefore insufficient as a fiscal incentive. Fifth, let me talk about the shipping industry. The neighboring countries are using a European measure to take a number of measures to improve competition in the shipping sector by reducing labour costs. In particular, this exemption relates to the transfer of the corporate advance fee for employees of undertakings flying the European flag. This scheme applies to the bagger and merchant shipping sector and was extended by royal decree to the traction services. Due to the economic importance of the shipping sector for the Flemish ports and for the preservation of the few companies that still sail under their own flag, this measure can count on the support of the Flemish Bloc. As regards the free of charge of the naturalization procedure, within the framework of the bill on naturalization as discussed today in the Committee on Justice, we continue to be surprised at the determination of this government to deal with everything related to naturalizations at an unimaginable speed. This is also apparently the case with the abolition of the 6 000 francs file costs for applying for naturalization. We dare suppose that the liberal faction wants to pursue this whole matter of naturalizations as soon as possible in the hope that the public opinion would forget this as soon as possible. We are of the opinion that with the abolition of the registration fees all the requirements for the integration will of a foreigner who wishes to accept the Belgian citizenship will gradually disappear. Finally, we support the principle of certain fiscal measures, as proposed in this bill. However, the completion and elaboration of a number of measures are susceptible to improvement, especially with regard to the target group of families. These measures do not go far enough for us and therefore do not give us satisfaction.

Colleagues, the Justice Committee will suspend its work to enable its members, who wish to, to respond to what is discussed here, vu l'amendement que M. Bacquelaine a rappelé here. I think this is just a correct way of acting. Other speakers may be added to the speaker list. On the other hand, M. Viser, I'ai demandé à M. Le ministre Daems, qui aurait dû vous interrompre pour répondre à vos questions, de le faire rapidement maintenant parce que vous avez fait une observation à propos de La Poste.

As for the post office, we asked where this figure of 6,000 employees came from. I ask myself too. The Echo was apparently wrong. Indeed, for Belgacom, the figures were 6,000 people who left the company and 6,000 others were reclassified under a re-employment program. I fear that the journalist was mistaken and indicated in the title that the number of people employed at La Poste had increased from 40,000 to 34,000. The figure of 6,000 jobs does not come from the ministry, the Post, or Mac Kenzie for the simple reason that the study of this office is ongoing. This again demonstrates the power of the media. Due to a mistake in the press, French-speaking parliamentarians ask themselves many questions. The journal of the Echo asked Mr. Bastien if it was hundreds of people and the latter replied that it would rather be thousands. This was mistakenly taken for a Belgacom script. We cannot give an order of greatness for the right reason that the social plan has just been put to study, and I will not know its conclusions until January or February. The impact on staff will depend on how the business plan will be executed. Unfortunately, I cannot give you further explanations regarding the impact on the staff. I add, however, that I regret that an element of which no one is yet sure today has taken such an extent.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, I also asked a question regarding the delayed paid leave. I am surprised that we are thinking of reducing the number of people employed while otherwise we are unable to give the staff the paid leave they are entitled to. Can you provide me with information on this?

We are trying to see what are the reasons for this delayed paid leave. One of the reasons is that Saturday’s work has resumed. There is also a problem of absentism. It is not possible to deduce the number of days of leave to be taken if there is too much or too little staff.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. On behalf of the Socialist Party, I would like to express my satisfaction in this matter. In fact, the government statement foresees a continuous decrease in fiscal and para-fiscal pressure throughout the legislature. Together with the majority partners, my party can only encourage the Minister of Finance to present, in the coming months, a draft reform of the tax on natural persons that will be favorable to the taxpayers. From now on, we can look forward to the immediate effects of certain measures. As a socialist, I am proud that the new provisions are favorable to low incomes. I will mention three measures. 1 of 1. The tax rates are reindexed. In this way we fulfill our promises. 2 of 2. The complementary crisis contribution will be removed. For budgetary reasons, this removal will be gradual. In view of this element, the reduction will take place, in 1999, primarily in favor of those with the lowest incomes and pensions. 3 of 3. This law aims to ensure the free of charge of the naturalization procedure. My party is pleased. In this way, the citizen will immediately benefit from a reduction in their taxes. And it is those with the lowest incomes who will benefit first of all from these measures. Together with my party, I remain attentive to the government’s tax reform project that wants to reduce the burden on labor income and thus encourage job creation. There is still a lot of work to be done, but we must take into account the limits we face on the budgetary level. This law remains obviously a compromise but it must be emphasized that it does not impose any additional tax burden, quite the opposite. Furthermore, I repeat, the measures are favorable to the lowest incomes as well as pensions.

Mr. Dehu, in your speech you have rightly referred to a number of budgetary limits. I draw attention to the fact that some passages in the explanatory memory almost resemble an election pamphlet. I mean more specifically where a gradual and complete abolition of the crisis tax is spoken, while the dispositive is limited to a very small operation for the next two years. Mr. Dehu, afterwards you said that budgetary constraints must be taken into account. Does this mean that you make a reservation with regard to the complete abolition, in particular with regard to the next phase? This is the most difficult phase. When fully implemented, it will result in a cross-speed cost of 30 billion Belgian francs.

I would like to say that this point has been discussed in the committee. It is clear that tax cuts have limits. Once the income is reduced, a choice must be made. which is the case.

This confirms what we have already said in the committee: at least a number of political groups in the government make reservations about the complete abolition of the crisis tax. Mr. Minister, we reiterate here that this is the case at least from the PS.

I would like to conclude my speech by saying that the Socialist Party supports the government’s proposal.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, I apologize for my partial absence during the debate. I was also present in the Justice Committee because there was a very interesting discussion about, among other things, procedures, as well as articles relating to this bill. It was important, however, to say for a moment what was said in the Committee on Finance regarding the free cost of the various procedures related to naturalization. Here we are faced with a limited, clear and clear draft law on tax provisions. It is good that this is limited. Indeed, we must not fall into the euphoria that a tax program law would be a rubbish box law, in which everything and everything is stopped. We need to limit the topics. This is also limited in terms of financial consequences and in terms of financial tax reform. At the moment, that is a good thing. I say this right now, because a number of reforms have been announced. If we are going to discuss fundamentally about a tax reform, I think that must be preceded by some thoughtwork and some discussion. I fully support the thought pattern of the Government and the Minister, according to which a note is being prepared on a thorough reform of the fiscal system, which will then be presented in the autumn of 2000. This can be discussed in the autumn of 2000 and the necessary legislative initiatives will then be taken in the course of 2001. That is a good way of working, and it does not exclude that at the same time we can already give some incentives, possibly symbolic, to indicate which direction we want to go. In this regard, the government seems to have succeeded with this draft. The first important point is the reintroduction of the indexation of the tax scales. I do not neglect the paternity of this reindexing. This should remain a point of discussion between the current and the former Minister of Finance. The principled decision was indeed made and now it is being implemented. That is a good thing. An additional element is the abolition of the crisis tax. There is no problem. More important for the direction of the tax reform is the VAT reduction on labor-intensive services. Thus, this government shows its will to make labour cheaper. This can be done through elements of taxation and social security, but it can also be done through VAT reductions. It is limited, it is an initiative, but for me it is also a clear sign that we want to work on this further. I therefore ask the Minister to provide us with both the necessary studies and outlook on the macro-economic and micro-economic effects of VAT reductions for the entire reform on the re-incorporation of VAT rates. One has developed the technique of what is called microsimulations in connection with the change of VAT rates, allowing one to calculate what the consequences are for the different categories of consumers. If we reduce or increase a VAT rate, we need to know which income categories will benefit and which not. Thus we can estimate the social consequences, but this can only be done if we have enough time to prepare such a reform. Another important point is the deductibility of the costs of childcare. I remember what I have already said in the committee. If we want to make certain tax benefits, we should not do so only in the form of tax deductions, in which only persons with a certain income benefit. They should benefit everyone, including the low income. This aspect has not yet been addressed in this measure, but I am confident that it will be taken into account in the future. You know, Mr. Minister, that we still have some problems with the aid measure for the maritime sector, not because we do not grant it to the maritime sector, but because we think we should follow the general principle in this regard. We must seriously ask ourselves whether we want to continue in the international competition, where the global tax base is eroded, resulting in those who do not benefit from the measure having to pay more taxes. In the SME country that is Belgium, we must be concerned about the impact on all companies and that are very many small and medium-sized enterprises. I would like to go further to point 5, in particular, the free of charge of the naturalization procedure. In the presence of the Chairman of the Committee on Justice and the Minister of Justice, I would like to point out that those articles were very clearly included in the draft program law. On this subject a presentation was held by the Minister of Finance, who in this regard referred to the government agreement. I note that in the committee no fundamental objections were expressed against the free of charge. However, there was a legitimate comment from Mr Borginon, in which he pointed out that other procedures still have to be paid. He therefore wondered whether it should not be considered to allow other procedures, which are normal in a rule of law, to be carried out free of charge. The only real comment was therefore aimed at further expanding the free cost.

Mr. Speaker, if Mr. Tavernier quotes me, I would like him to do it correctly. Mr. Tavernier, the reason for my intervention was to point out that this was not at all a proposal that was inspired by a certain larger global vision, but that it was intended to please you and that it would be described as such.

Mr. Borginon, you say that this measure is proposed to please me. Should I take it literally? In my opinion, this measure fits in the context of a global, better relationship between government and citizens. A number of normal procedures should be made free as much as possible. If this can apply for naturalization applications, that is a good thing. If it can be introduced for other procedures in the future, that is also a good thing. Due to the limitation and at the same time the clarity of this bill, Agalev-Ecolo will support it.

First of all, I would like to congratulate the Minister of Finance. A draft, in addition to the first, of a finance minister, adopted in a committee without a single vote against, is nevertheless quite rare. Who could have imagined, just a few months ago, that a law containing tax and various provisions - of sinister memory - would be adopted in a commission without anyone opposing it? For a trial, this is a master stroke, Mr. Minister. I must say that your project has something to attract. Indeed, first by the speed with which he begins to implement this essential chapter of government communication that provides, throughout the legislature, for a reduction of the fiscal pressure. It is so fast that it reacts backwards, but only in measures favourable to taxpayers; in addition, it does not contain any unfavorable ones. He retreats as he will reduce the tax pressure on percentage income six months before the government takes office. I remember that the retroactivity of tax laws is not a novelty. However, here it is quite different: before, it made retroactive measures unfavourable to taxpayers. All experts on the subject are unanimous in admitting that this is one of the shortcomings that have poisoned tax legislation and the life of the taxpayer. By the way, during the discussion of the government statement, I had asked you the question of whether, for the tax measures announced, you were targeting the year 2000 or the fiscal year 2000; this was not obvious. I can tell you now: I had not received a response. So, based on my past experience, I had made myself to the idea that it would ⁇ not be for the 2000 fiscal year but for the 2000 income. This is better than what you promised. This is a precedent: you are one of the Prime Ministers of Finance who does more than he promises. Indexing of bars: Mr. Dirk Pieters talked about it and I see Mr. Leterme is already very excited at the idea that is being talked about. It is true that there is no need for a specific legislative provision in order for IPP scales to be indexed. The State Council has mentioned this; Mr. Mr. Peterson was in charge of the commission, as well as Mr. The letter. The important and interesting element is why it is so. In 1985, a liberal minister, Mr. Grootjans, finally introduced the principle of indexation of bars, a principle that subsequent governments never dared to abolish. They acted deviantly by suspending the effects of indexation, without ever abolishing the Grootjans Act, which they also confirmed in the 1988 Reform Act. They did it several times, with active effects until a few months before the elections. Given this ten-year experience, the mere fact that no suspensive measures are taken under the Grootjans Act constitutes in itself a positive tax measure. Likewise, it constitutes a tax measure the fact of integrating the full effects of the indexation of the rates in the professional pre-account scheme for the whole year 2000. It was not only normal but, in my opinion, even necessary to reassure citizens that the Minister of Finance confirms this measure in the exhibition of the reasons for the project. The return to the integral indexation of the IPP scheme may seem to some an anodine measure. Moreover, often, the general public does not understand it; often, it even confuses the indexation of the scheme and the indexation of the tax. Why will the indexation of the barems allow its tax not to increase? And it is also, in my opinion, largely because of this hermeticity that we dared to suspend this measure for so long. But it is actually quite fundamental. This is a basic tax fairness measure. Let us give an example. Without it, it is the indexation of wages – to which everyone is attached – that is annihilated, or in any case reduced by half! Furthermore, the figures speak for themselves. The suspension of indexation since 1994 has cost Belgian taxpayers 205 billion. And vice versa, its restoration will ease the tax burden of natural persons by 8.4 billion – these are the figures of the minister that appear in the report – for the revenues of 1999, and by 17.5 billion for the revenues of 2000. Moreover, this measure has a cumulative effect, the effects are increasing every year. The second point concerns the abolition of the complementary crisis contribution. The supplementary contribution, it has already been said, is a tax on a tax, a facility solution, a very bad tax. And this tax is much heavier than it seems, since between 1994 and 1999, it cost taxpayers no less than 173 billion, and it still currently accounts for about thirty billion a year. The decision to abolish it is obviously excellent. It is the explanation of the reasons that confirms that the removal...

Mr. Speaker, for a while I have tried decently to inform you that I wanted to intervene, but apparently urgent agreements had to be made within the coalition and that prevented you from giving me the word.

No, Mr. Leterme, Mr. Vandeurzen requested to come to an agreement on Justice and you will notice that we have responded to his request.

Of course, Mr. Speaker, hic et nunc efforts must be made to reach an agreement and I ⁇ do not blame you for your efforts to ⁇ this. I wanted to interrupt Mr. van Weddingen when he talked about the already decided re-indexing of the tax scales. Like the Minister of Finance, by the way, Mr. van Weddingen is a hard teacher, in the sense that according to a law on pedagogy, one must often repeat a lesson before children - and also adults - remember the lesson. Therefore, I repeat that the re-indexing of the tax scales was decided by the previous government. This draft does not provide for any decision in this regard. I understand why Mr. van Weddingen returns extensively to this matter; thus he can hide that the draft does not, for the rest, contain many tax favourable measures. Given the budgetary impact, it is quite marginal. I take note of the fact that Mr. van Weddingen speaks a little in the empty air about the yield of the non-indexation of the tax scales. As I said before at the committee meeting, I find it regrettable that the liberals do not say a word about the sanitation effort that was decided by a number of persons and that was naturally provided by the population. Again, the CVP group is proud of the way the budget has been settled, as well as the fact that the Christian Democrats took the lead in this matter. If you leave this out of consideration, it is at your expense, Mr. van Weddingen. We are also in favour of reducing the tax burden, but we would supplement it in a different way. Finally, Mr. Van Weddingen, you just welcomed the abolition of the crisis tax. Well, there is a manifest contradiction between the memory of explanation which, in the pamflettist style, foresees the complete reduction of the crisis tax and the dispositive which only speaks of a very limited, minimal abolition of it during the first two years. From the speech of your colleague from the PS, it was clear that there are big questions arising about the complete abolition of the crisis tax. Mr Tavernier did not say a word about the implementation of that measure between 2001 and 2004. On the contrary, he referred to the announced note on the fiscal reform. Well, Mr. van Weddingen, do you agree that this draft contains only a small part of the rapid and complete abolition of the crisis tax announced by Minister Reynders in a previous life?

I can see that Mr. Leterme has by this system the possibility of making two interventions since it will be able to intervene a second time already. As for the complementary crisis contribution, I was far from finished, so I will return to it. As for the indexation of tax bars, I think I have been sufficiently clear and nuanced in what I explained earlier. You consider that the current government should not take action, because, say you, the previous government has taken action in this area. Now, he did not take it either, he contented himself, for the tenth time, to suspend the effects of a basic liberal law. The terms you use are somewhat contradictory; you say: you are not taking any measure, we are taking the measure. But no, there is simply no measurement! But you will continue to speak after me and will be able to make a full explanation on the subject.

Mr. Speaker, in the memorandum of explanation to the 1999 budget - a draft submitted on behalf of the Council of Ministers was clearly stated that the non-indexation of the tax scales would not be extended.

Let us return to the complementary contribution of the crisis. It is true that the exposition of reasons confirms that the removal is decided for its entirety, but within four years. The Minister also joined the report with a budget forecast for these four years. Of course, I would also have preferred the removal of the contribution at once, if only for the purposes of simplifying the tax legislation. Indeed, when you look at Article 3, you realize that a rule of pallier is not always simple and rather source of a certain complexity. However, complexity, when it is not indispensable in our tax legislation, is a major defect that the current government has undertaken, in its statement, to correct. I draw the government’s attention to the fact that this is a type of implementation that it would be better to avoid in the future. Budget issues will only be addressed next week, but I acknowledge that the importance of the fiscal impact I just ⁇ , 30 billion a year, can hardly be removed at once. You ⁇ won't contradict me about this because all your reasoning is based on the fact that you would have made 30 billion less than us, so you won't ask us to make 30 more. This small addiction to the simplicity of the tax legislation proved, this time, a constraint. I consider therefore that it is a vinal sin but I would also have preferred that the text, Mr. Leterme, be repeated, the dismantling to the end. I do not insist for two reasons: firstly because this system allows, if the budget circumstances are favorable, to go even faster, and secondly, because I trust a minister who often does better than he promises. Always with regard to the complementary crisis contribution, why not have worked by income tranches rather than targeting some and completely excluding others? This is also a cause of complementary complexity, to such an extent that it is because of this that it is not possible to fully integrate it into the professional pre-count scheme. I think it’s a bit unfair in the way we work. This could even, at the limit, break the equality before tax. But, Mr. Minister, I acknowledge that this is the only point in a whole such as the one you propose to us, which does not win my full support. But fortunately, by nature, it is a transitional measure. These are measures called to disappear from the Code and will not pollute it for a long time. Again, I would say that this is a vinal sin but that these are things to be careful about in the future so as not to multiply them, even though the measure itself, I repeat, is excellent. When it comes to reducing the VAT rate, the measure is simple and therefore will be effective. The request submitted to the European authorities, which the Minister sent to us and which appears in the report, is as broad as possible at the level of the implementation of the materials. This dissipates a small misunderstanding that occurred at the beginning with the sector and I am delighted to do so. It is good - as the minister has also proposed - to make the development in three years on the results in terms of employment. I do not make a surcharge on this point; it is true that we could extend the measure to other sectors: horeca, hairdressers, new buildings, etc. But even though these proposals should not be closed, and even if the debate can be resumed later, it is certain that budgetary choices have imposed themselves. Nevertheless, it is hard to admire this project, because it already contains so many favourable measures and has real budgetary impacts. This is already in itself unexpected and, in my opinion, more than sufficient in this area for a first step. Regarding the deductibility of childcare costs, the increase in the amount is very appreciable for children benefiting from approved structures; for others, the increase being in fact proportionally equivalent, the latter remains also appreciable. But it is the starting point that is too low. I explain to myself. Given that the offer of seats in approved structures is ⁇ insufficient and that, in addition, each of these seats is very expensive for the community, it would ⁇ be desirable in the future to revise upwards the exemption for children who cannot be accommodated in approved structures and ⁇ - as has also been mentioned in commission - to extend this exemption to children over three years. More generally, the way in which our taxation takes into account family charges, child charges, is relatively low compared to what is provided in many legislations of neighboring countries, France being from this point of view the most characteristic. As a result, I believe that this is a topic of reflection among so many others in the framework of the future tax reform; I know that Mr. The Minister is receptive there, and we will remind him in due time if necessary. As regards the maritime sector, I do not deny that economic reasons can justify the proposed measures, and I do not see any inconvenience in extending them to the problem of the trailer; in this regard, I have even heartily co-signed an amendment of a, say, pragmatic nature that goes in this direction. That said, from an intellectual point of view, I understand the reluctance that has been expressed by some: creating derogatory systems is never good, first because derogations have a natural propensity to extend to other sectors, and then and above all because when a general system proves inapplicable in a number of cases, then it is the general system that must be amended... Interruption of Mr. Jef Tavernier) Of course yes, Mr. by Tavernier! The more derogations are created, the less chances are there to change the overall system. This modest reflection, which in some aspects may resemble legal philosophy, will not prevent me, however, from supporting the proposed measures. by Mr. I’m coming to the end of your project.

And of your intervention, you suppose, M. of weddings.

Mr. Speaker, I will conclude. If I count well - and I ⁇ count well, since I have taken back your own numbers, Mr. This small project of a dozen articles - eleven with the entry into force - will have the effect, at a cruise rate, to reduce the tax of our fellow citizens by eighty billion a year. So, by itself, this project is already a vital reform. When the real fiscal reform that is being prepared – the impact of which I do not necessarily know but which must inevitably be greater than that of this project, otherwise it would not really be a tax reform – is added, we will have practically captured half of our tax disadvantage compared to the European average. Needless to say, it is with enthusiasm that I will vote for this project, which constitutes the first step of this indispensable retrieval.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, I could be very brief. Who can oppose tax cuts? Since this draft includes such a measure, it could have ended. But because of my poor character, I have asked myself why one might be against this measure. There are a number of good reasons for this. First, taxes serve to finance government spending. To the extent that these expenses are considered important, the reduction of taxes is controversial. Each franc that Minister Reynders returns to the taxpayer is one franc less for Minister Vandenbroucke or for Minister Durant. It is also a franc that cannot be used to reduce debt faster. In short, the choice to reduce taxes should be balanced against the usefulness of the expenditure that makes it impossible. Second, an additional reason to oppose tax cuts is that the tax burden falls on the wrong persons, that a particular economic sector is forgotten, or that the target group of a particular party is respected. Third, one reason inherent in this country to be against tax cuts is the fact that it is the wrong government that reduces the burden. This is, of course, a variant of the previous one, but it is not about whether all Belgians should receive a tax reduction or only the Flamings. It also concerns whether the tax cuts will reduce the margin for granting fiscal autonomy. After all, if the expenditure in Wallonia is relatively higher, but the tax income is lower – and in Flanders exactly the opposite – then a reduction in the income at the federal level is also a reduction in the already too limited tax income of Wallonia. This reduction in income is then a possible barrier on the willingness of the French speakers to stand on their own in fiscal terms. After all, the income they have themselves becomes even more insufficient to cover their expenses. Thus, this is a third criterion for assessing tax reduction. Fourth, not all tax cuts are acceptable for the European and other international institutions. It may best be that a particular tax measure is considered to distort competition. However, not all European tax measures are flawed. What, for example, to think of two of the five measures agreed by the European Finance Ministers in connection with the reduction of VAT for labour-intensive services. The European competence in the field of VAT is a direct consequence of the need to combat distortion of competition. In this case, Europe itself makes sure that the competition is organized in border regions. I will not mention the frustrations in the hospitality industry, which is not mentioned in those five sectors. Should they — like the Romanians on accession to the Union — wait until those five sectors have received something? Fifth, even if one is for concrete burden reductions, it may be that one does not consider them as a priority, that one fears that the current burden reductions will devour the budgetary space for future tax reductions that one considers more priority. Sixth, the pace can be wrong: it can go too fast or too slow. Seventh, one may think that the reduction of the burden to a structural deficit can cause something like throwing savings cents through windows and doors. Finally, one can argue that the economic effect of a certain tax reduction is not what one says it is, that it is poorly timed or wrong. Mr. Speaker, colleagues, you are undoubtedly wondering why I struggle to list a number of reasons against tax cuts. The fact that we have entered a new era of burden reductions instead of burden increases does not, in my opinion, mean that there should be no critical remarks about the content of the tax measures taken. A vote against or an abstinence should not be interpreted as a rejection of the burden reduction. On the contrary, the People’s Union&ID are principally convinced that the global government’s seizure of GDP is quite exaggerated. However, I do not make illusions. To address a number of justified questions regarding more government initiative, this has repercussions on the possibility of reducing taxes and other burdens. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Mr. Colleagues, before going a little deeper into the concrete measures proposed by the Government in the present draft, I would like to continue to reflect on what is not in the draft. The text does not say a word about the Government’s intention not to suspend the legally prescribed indexation of the tax scales. Rarely in this house such a tree is set up over the intention of a government not to screw back a fiscal measure. We leave it quite cold whether this is a merit of the previous government or of the current coalition. In neither of these cases, our group bears any responsibility in this regard. For the People’s Union&ID, what matters is quite normal, in particular that the tax scales follow the devaluation of coins. It would not be fair to describe this as a burden reduction. It is just the cessation of a sluggish tax increase. I am pleased that the Minister has promised not to include this number in the column of the burden reductions. I wonder if he will keep this promise. I now come to the content of the draft. Increasing the tax deductibility of childcare – a royal decree that has not yet been approved – and increasing the tax deductibility for children for whom no childcare costs are deducted are meaningful measures. However, some points need to be clarified further. What happens with the extension of pre- and post-school care for children over 3 years old? Mrs Brepoels and I have submitted our amendment on this subject again. What happens to the increase in the global deduction for child burden? I agree that this point can be better addressed in the discussion of the major tax reform. The CVP’s proposal to increase the tax-free amount for the children for whom no guardianship is deducted not only stimulates a black circuit but also creates an additional unemployment drop as the deduction for guardianship becomes less attractive. The fiscal and social status of the welcoming mothers is also a problem that needs to be addressed urgently. Increasing the deductibility of childcare can only be a first step, but it is not the definitive solution for the triangle work-free-time family. The gradual elimination of the additional crisis tax on the personal tax is a little less neutral. Despite all substantial explanations, this law is limited to the inclusion of a derogation from the principle of the additional crisis tax for the personal tax component for the 2000 and 2001 reporting years. Furthermore, this deviation remains limited to low incomes. Therefore, it is quite possible that the old system will be reinstalled in the next budget round. The legal principle remains. There are no guarantees for the future. There is no mention of other categories of tax on which the additional crisis tax is levied. As a result, those who do not receive a reduction must bear a relatively larger portion of the burden. This applies to the married two-earners, the companies, and so on. Together with the complexity of the measures laid down in the law, this leads me to conclude that it may not be so bad yet that the reduction remains limited to the fiscal years 2000 and 2001. The possibility of removing the whole in the context of the major tax reform remains. I therefore advise the Minister to eliminate the additional crisis tax on the occasion of a major reform. He then has the oil to lubricate the entire new machinery. If that was the purpose of the phasing, this is smart seen. However, I do not think so far. In principle, any rate reduction of personal tax on the federal level is suspicious in my eyes. In fact, it means that residents of the country that is unable to cover the expenses with tax revenues enjoy the same reduction of burden as residents of Flanders, which has sufficient tax revenues to cover its own expenses. In fact, such a crisis tax should be abolished de-federalized. With the money now used to reduce incomes at the federal level, the crisis tax can be abolished faster in Flanders. Of course, there are limited reductions. It is then logical that politicians like Elio Di Rupo give the signal that there can be talk of fiscal autonomy as long as Wallonia does not have less incomes. Any burden reduction by which the federal government reduces income from personal tax in Wallonia constitutes an additional obstacle to the achievement of fiscal autonomy. The gap between what one receives and what one has to pay only grows. In fact, it is not possible that the major tax reform, which has been announced many times, would not be accompanied by the granting of tax autonomy with regard to personal tax. No federal reduction without simultaneous tax autonomy! Regional load lights are prioritized over federal load lights. The third section of the Tax Program Law is going in the right direction. Thanks to colleague Viseur, we know that this measure is intended exclusively for the north of the country. Especially drillers, the merchant shipyard and ⁇ also the tractor shipyard sector are involved. We can support this measure. We do not really need to be proud of this. It is mainly about the sovereign state clinging to the laws of international competition. In the three sectors, the choice of the State is actually deadly. Legislation can be adjusted and a favourable tax and social status can be developed for those sectors or those sectors will disappear tomorrow. The latter is not really a threat from those sectors, which is in itself unacceptable, but simply a conclusion. We are pleased that, in the course of the discussions, the Government has intended to extend the tax favourable measures for the merchant shipping and bagger sector to the tractor shipping sector. The people in this sector have provided us with a lot of information that allows us to conclude that equal treatment with the merchant shipping and bagger sector is possible in terms of both European legislation and the principle of equality. I hope that the announced favourable measure for the sector will also contribute to the sector’s growth in the export markets. It would ⁇ be worth evaluating the effect of this measure at the end of the legislature.

Mr. Speaker, I have a small comment on the Government’s amendment regarding the extension to the trawling services. I have rarely seen the opposition in this parliament respond so enthusiastically to a measure that is in fact a mandate to the government.

Mr. Tavernier, as a member of this majority, you know a lot about powers, although you have also opposed them in the past. I would have expected better from you. Why do we consider this an acceptable example of a mandatory decision? We now know exactly what it is about and there is also a good motivation. We know that we are talking about tracking services. We know the content of the measures, namely the content of the program law. We are 100% sure of this. Therefore, it is not a decision of authority at all. It is because of the opposition of the green parties that this measure is not included in the law. I think that the government submitted this amendment to prevent it from having to reject Mr Desimpel’s amendment. The ball is completely in your camp. The draft also includes a provision that makes naturalizations free. I have no principled objections to this free naturalization. However, some critical questions arise here. Is this burden reduction a priority, thoughtful, necessary, useful? It reinforces the impression that the foreigners who want to acquire nationality are poor dives who want to live on the cap of the taxpayer. Could that be the intention of a green coalition? From the weak candidates, such as the rich Dutch from Brasschaat and the surrounding areas, who one day want to become Belgian and the other day not, no barrier money is asked anymore. For other acts relating to the civil status of the person, such as the change of name, the change of first name, no similar measures are taken. This procedure continues to take the same length and remains, above all, of a deterrent character. The Minister has expressed the willingness to consider this, but it remains clear that the inclusion of this fiscal provision has little to do with the implementation of a thoughtful policy on registration and seal rights. It primarily has a symbolic function to please our green friends. The weze granted them. We have the impression that we must fight harder to get some balsam from the VLD. This provision does not at all testify to a thoughtful fiscal vision. Minister Daems has extensive apologies for his absence. However, I would like to make a few comments regarding the Post.

The Minister told me that he had an appointment with you on this.

When it comes to the post, I am a kind. I was therefore curious about the content of the provision in the program law relating to De Post. I wondered why this provision was included in the program law. The law already provides for the possibility of making De Post a different type of company. Why should the King - read Rik Daems - be given the opportunity to do this himself? The answer is obvious: because he has no confidence in the management of De Post. This distrust may be justified. Probably one has more confidence in the quick and efficient action of Rik Daems than in the quick and efficient action of De Post. We have always criticized the management of the Post. We also do not agree that Parliament does not participate in the privatizations. I would prefer a full-fledged discussion in the plenary session over a provision in the program law. Minister Daems has given in the Committee on Infrastructure, Traffic and Public Companies an explanation on the whole of the reform of De Post. Per ⁇ he will progress much faster — or at all much more efficiently. Although there can be a lot of critical comments on this bill, it does not deserve a vote against it. It contains too many positive elements. Finally, I would like to say that we should finance the regions and communities as quickly as possible with exclusively own tax resources.

Since I would like to close the general discussion this morning, I ask the other speakers to be as concise as possible.

What do you understand under this morning?

I use the Spanish definition.

Mr. Speaker, both in the discussion of the policy letter of the Minister and in the treatment of this program law, a lot of comments have been made. My presentation will therefore be brief. At least six months after this government’s inauguration, despite the budgetary constraints, a series of tax cuts are introduced. Bo-vendien is primarily thought of the lowest income categories. In this context, I refer to the gradual abolition of the additional crisis contribution. We urge that this contribution be abolished by 2003 for all income categories. Furthermore, all these measures are only the beginning. The Minister has made important commitments in the committee that go beyond the next fiscal year. I think, among other things, of your commitment to the Documentation Service of Finance and the Federal Planning Bureau to request a new estimate of the budgetary consequences of a reduction in the VAT rate for new construction. You have not only promised it, you have promised it. You will inform the committee of the results of this proposal during the audit of the 2000 budget. The second clear intention in the memory of explanation is to further extend the deductibility of the costs of childcare and not to limit them to children under three years of age. I have just been informed of the intention of the VLD group to submit a number of legislative proposals to include the costs of childcare under the deduction of professional costs. At first glance we are not very happy with this but we will of course wait for the discussion. A first consideration here is that a single unemployed woman who must apply and bring her children to the shelter for this, cannot enjoy the tax deductibility. I would therefore point out a possible deterioration of the situation for certain categories of taxable persons. Third, I’ve heard you say that you also want to simplify the very strict conditions associated with the tax deductibility of housekeeping expenses. We welcome this as it is an important measure to tackle black labour in this sector. Fourth, I have found that you are considering granting a certain tax aid to a number of neighborhood services that organize, for example, childcare or home care. This is also a good thing. Mr. Minister, the various intentions that you have expressed in addition to the content of the program law make us look forward to the major tax reform that we expect next year. We will look at them with an open mind, critically and from our own perspective. For the current program law, you can count on our support.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ministers, Mr. Colleagues, my party fellow has expressed the main opinions of our party on the various elements of the program law. I would like to go a little deeper into one aspect that everyone has cited here, namely the first measures related to increasing the deduction for childcare. Mr. van Weddingen has repeated what the minister has said about this in the committee, namely that this would be considered in view of the promised tax reform in October next year. Expectations regarding this tax reform are increasing. In fact, this draft law is only a scary first step towards the concrete measures that illustrate what the liberals have promised to the taxpaying citizens. I would like to address the aspect of childcare, not because I want to speak specifically about a technical detail but because the perspective from which one looks at that matter is very important. The use of the word childcare alone shows that one sees this from a certain perspective, I would even dare to say from a feminist perspective. We have become accustomed to discussing childcare lately, while one should always keep in mind that this is about raising children. One cannot live in a society where children are taken care of for eight hours a day and only raised for a quarter of an hour. That does not exist. Child care is, by definition, education. This term makes it clear that these are fundamental choices. At the individual level we have already had the illustration of Mr. Borginon. He placed himself in the place of a young mother who wanted to work outdoors and whose choice would be negatively affected by an overly high tax deductibility of the costs of raising her child at home. In my view, the choice would be the opposite. I can quite imagine a young mother choosing to work outdoors just because the financial penalty of staying home is too big for a young family. In her heart, she would want to raise her own child. These are fundamental choices both on the individual and on the social level. The social repercussions of this choice are very profound. If you hear in this discussion the members of the VLD say that they want to categorize the deduction for childcare as professional costs, I intuitively think that this cannot be done. Is the upbringing of a child subordinate to the exercise of a profession? Does childcare belong to the practical organization of work, such as transportation to and from work, the equipment that one needs, the clothing that one wears? Education is at that level. This is impossible. It contradicts the views of our party. In the case of subsidisation, deduction or public intervention in matters relating to family choices, the family’s free choice should be supported. We have always pledged for a situation where the choice would be truly free. If one wants to support and subsidize the upbringing of children, one should consider it not only as a cost of employment, but as a fundamental choice of the family. Belgium is one of the few countries where the home-working parent has no status, no social status and no pension rights at all, unlike the Netherlands for example, and where in all decisions of this kind the group of home-parents is considered almost nonexistent. We want to prevent this measure from being sympathetic to the young families. After all, one cannot be opposed to an increased tax deduction for childcare, nor can one be opposed to an increased exemption for those who receive children in an unrecognized circuit. These are usually people who raise children at home. But I missed a vision. Is this vision present or has the government registered itself in what has become commonly a near-socialist, communist vision? What is the place of the family and the place of the woman and finally the place of the education of the children in society as a whole? I would like to devote a number of considerations to this, given the major tax reform next year. I also refer to another aspect. We are talking primarily about financial measures. But there is another aspect that everyone regularly faces. Recently, we witnessed the news of some terrible family dramas. The pressure on the families is increasing and people are longing for what is called an increased quality of life. In this context, there is also a talk of precipitation. Some may not acknowledge this, but there is a clear link between government measures affecting the family, namely in terms of the upbringing of children, family work and professional work, and the almost unbearable pressure that has led to what is called the crisis of the family in our society. This crisis may cause us to worry because the family, together with private property, form the basic institutions of a free democratic society. The family is one of the pillars of Western free democracy. I would like to briefly outline the historical overview of the ideas in this regard, starting with the ideas of Aristotle and Plato in the ancient Greek. Aristotle already pointed out the link between the family and the freedom of the individual against the government. Therefore, I am not talking here about purely individual choices, but about their relevance on a social level in a society like ours, where the government indeed interferes in the choice of families. He criticized Plato’s proposals that assumed that in the ideal state women, children, everything would be common, and the government – the State – would manage everything common. For him, politics, the state, was more important than the family. Aristotle pointed out that this could not be done. People do not want shared possessions of women and children; people are inherently inclined to seek love and friendship in lasting relationships between individuals and in family and family bonds. In these family unions, people can only develop if they are given the space and the arm, if they possess the material goods which they may call their private property. This vision has become the foundation of Western liberal democracy: private property and family as the core of society. It has been so for centuries. The awareness of its importance has become fiercely current again in the twentieth century in the interwar period. Several liberal philosophers have spoken and written about it. Friedrich von Hayek writes that the family is the main dam against the power of the state over the individual citizen. He thus describes family and state as competitors of each other, both economically and in terms of protection and education – in modern terms that is called quality of life. At a time when the transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society took place, it was also liberal economists and philosophers who pointed out that competition was introduced in the households when all family members went outside work. At that time it was men, women and children. Especially people like John Stuart Mill then advocated for a ban on child labour. Interestingly, someone like John Stuart Mill was one of the first advocates of the emancipation of women, but at the same time also predicted the effect on families of people who all compete with each other outdoors or on the labour market. Inside is complementary, and outside is competitive. At a certain point in the evolution of all that thought, the emancipation of women has no longer remained a liberal theme, but has become a socialist theme. This happened especially after the Second World War. Think of the Swedish welfare state with an ideologist like Gunnar Myrdal who deliberately, for ideological reasons, wanted to establish a system in which women would work outdoors. It was not because they asked for it or because the economic situation required it – after World War II, but only partially – but for ideological reasons. There are still liberal economists and philosophers working on this topic. I think of Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker who, in an economic analysis of the impact of divorce on society, also points to that competition element that is introduced, which weakens the cohesion of families. I would like to give you one idea in this whole brief summary of the thought on the relationship between government and family and their social influence. The ideal of Plato referred to and according to which the state controls everything and educates the children because it is best suited for it is also the ideal that has taken shape in modern feminism. Modern feminism as an ideology is something different from women’s emancipation. I now talk about the ideology we find in several branches of the women’s movement. The connection with communism is also very clear when one reads the work of someone like English. Engels was Marx’s lender and himself an ideologist. He has written a book titled The Origin of Family, Private Property and the State. The thoughts he formulates in it are intangible and revealing. He writes there that the first class antagonism in history coincides with the monogamous marriage, and that the first oppression is the oppression of the female sex by the man. The modern family, according to him, relies on the oppression of the woman, by definition. He predicted that this would change, and he writes, I quote: When the means of production become communal possession, the individual family will cease to be the basic economic unit of society. The care and education of children shall be carried out by the State. The society will take care of all children, whether they are born within the marriage or not. Now, indeed, we see in our society a tension between two societal models: on the one hand, the family-oriented food-winning model, which is slowly disappearing but therefore not yet disappearing, no matter how much some people would like to have it, and, on the other hand, the individualist model, where everyone works and earns, regardless of his family situation, regardless of the number of persons he or she needs to maintain. This is reinforced in our time by concepts such as positive discrimination, in which the model of individuals who are all outdoors to self-development is encouraged to the detriment of the food winner model that is left in the cold. Meanwhile, we are also entering a period in which more and more people are scientifically accentuating the importance and value of the upbringing of children within the family. I think of a recent British study, which has shown that children’s cognitive and social development is much better when they are raised with their mother at home in the course of their first years of life rather than being raised in a nursery. I also refer in this regard to the works of modern psychiatrists and psychologists, for example Bob Van Sant, who deals with the phenomena of depression and who points to the almost unsustainable pressure on the modern women in the family to be everything at the same time, to be especially valued as developing outdoors, while what is so valuable, namely raising the children, shaping the future adults, ensuring the quality of life within the family, comes into the oppression. I find that the government is pursuing a policy which is based on a single vision, or is attached to the common socialist-feminist-inspired vision where the measures to support the family are always focused on the family members working outdoors or on the possibilities of the family to be present on the labour market. Too often, families are ignored in their choice to work complementarily, to exercise domestic parenting during the years when the children are small. Mr. Minister, when one starts this great thought operation following the discussion about childcare and education – whether it’s professional costs or social costs, we support families or we support the labour market, and so on – one must take this into account. If one is concerned, not only for the family, not only for the individual free choice of the citizens, but also for the liberal democracy in general, one will have to pay more attention to the families who want to invest time and money in the education of the citizens of the future, this is contrary to simply letting the children take care while they develop on the labour market. I advocate that all these aspects be taken into account and that we do not come to a reinforcement of the double-income model at a time when the group of home parents, who ultimately make the largest investment in education, is still being discriminated against.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. I would like to give you a few comments and reflections on this subject. In the Finance Committee, you explained to us, Mr. Minister, that this project was part of the government declaration which provides in its point 6, entitled the active social state, a continuous decrease in the fiscal and parafiscal pressure throughout the legislature, with the essential objective of reducing the burden that weighs on labor income. This project is equally and much more part of the continuity of the action of the previous government. The current coalition has no privilege of action in this matter and several measures of which you make yourself the champion, have been initiated by the former coalition. I mean as proof the measure relating to the reindexation of tax rates, decided and applied in the calculation of the professional pre-count from the second quarter of 1999. You have learned to nuanced your words. As you pose yourself as the initiator of the measure, you have returned to a more humble position by acknowledging that under your ministry, this measure will be applied for the first time for a whole year, namely in the year 2000, to this calculation of the professional pre-count. In the end, you simply apply a decision that didn’t belong to you. The same applies to the reduction of the VAT rate on a number of high labour-intensive services. The decision was made by the previous government in the framework of negotiations at European level. The only privilege left to you was to choose, among a number of services defined at European level, those for which the reduction measure could be applied. The low ambition of the measures proposed in the bill, compared to the repeated statements regarding the implementation of a major tax reform, does not justify that you appropriate decisions that do not belong to you. I wonder, in addition, how the government communicates about this new legislative technique, which consists of using bills as advertising effects. Your explanation of the reasons makes, in fact, a state of measures which are not regulated by the bill and by reason, since they can only be so by means of a royal decree. This is the case with the increase of the maximum amount of deductible customs costs. The Council of State has very rightly pointed out that while legislative measures contained in an advance draft law can be replaced in a broader context, it is still necessary to clearly distinguish what will be regulated by the draft from what will be the subject of other measures. As for the measure relating to the abolition of the complementary crisis contribution, although it is obviously not critical in terms of its positive effects on the citizen, the complexity of the technique used, however, leaves me confused. It does not agree much with the willingness of transparency and communication displayed by the government. I will conclude with the chapter relating to the transformation of the autonomous company La Poste into a public law company. Your colleague, Minister Daems, exposed before the Infrastructure Committee that La Poste was on the verge of undergoing significant changes with the liberalization of the postal sector on 1 January 2003. The Minister specified that a master plan was being prepared and that the board of directors had decided to transform the company into a public law company in order to be able to carry out a capital increase and to be able to make the necessary investments. However, the press recently cited a significant figure of staff dismissal. The minister responded by testifying to his ignorance of this figure. Therefore, as much as the government intends to encourage and develop employment, it is very surprising that a public company is planning such significant dismissal measures. Here, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, are the few reflections of a Neophyte in this assembly.

Monsieur Paque, vous taillez la réputation d'être concis, ce dont vous remercie. Mr. Leterme, you said that you would like to make another brief discussion on the general provisions, not just on the aspect of naturalizations.

There may be a misunderstanding. I would like to keep my speech in the general discussion.

I said that. Mr. Vandeurzen, Mr. Van Hoorebeke and Mr. Laeremans will speak this afternoon about the aspect of justice and naturalizations. You are asking M. Reynders s'il peut clôturer cet aspect. Ainsi, cet après-midi, on examinera en même temps les amendments.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, although I know that it is a necessity for the opposition, I would like to make use of the right of speech. I apologize to the colleagues who are waiting with some impatience to argue about the specific aspect of registration rights on naturalization applications. However, at the end of this general discussion and before the Minister’s response, I think it is good to repeat briefly what this bill is about. This is a very modest bill. There are three concrete measures that we will decide on in full. First, that is the selective VAT reductions, which are achieved within the framework of a number of objectives that we share, colleague Tavernier. It is a step in the right direction. We also support the choice of the domains in which the VAT reduction will apply. We had other ambitions with regard to the construction sector, but we understand that there is some reticence in this regard. I hope for the government that some colleagues of the majority, who had more ambition in this regard, such as colleague Desimpel, will take the same stance. A second measure that we can decide on is to increase the deductibility in the childcare sector. There were certain imperfections in this regard. We have our own bill on this subject, which we will re-agend in the coming months. Apart from the fact that this scheme may make the situation for unrecognized childcare a little more difficult, we can only share the goal of supporting childcare. A third measure that we decide on in this bill is the abolition of the registration fees imposed on naturalization applications. This is the most structural tax measure in this draft. In 1998, 14 000 to 15 000 naturalization applications were subject to registration fees, which are now being abolished. A small calculation teaches us that this measure has the greatest budgetary impact. Thus, it is one of the main fiscal measures of this modest bill. It is with some shame that I touch this topic for a moment, because there are colleagues, also in my group, who will talk about it later with more dossier knowledge. Nevertheless, I would like to situate the budgetary effect of this bill for a moment in order to point out, Mr. van Weddingen, the very modest appeal of this bill. With regard to the crisis contribution, we effectively establish, with regard to a number of income categories, a partial outsourcing for the respective two years, with, of course, the lowest income categories first being eligible. But the very principle of a crisis contribution is not abolished; it is only a very modest incentive to do so spread over the first two years, while in the explanatory memory there is a complete depreciation spread over four years. On the further implementation of the complete abolition of the crisis contribution with a budgetary impact of 30 billion, which is mentioned in the memorandum of explanation - which, by the way, is also misrepresented by the State Council because of the pamflettist style - the most diverse feelings and opinions are carried out. Mr. Dehu did not wish to comment on the full fulfillment of the promise in the Memory of Explanation. Mr. van Weddingen regretted the limited content of the promise, but found comfort in the fact – and I admire his capacity in this regard – that a modest initiative can be significant and that, if the years 2003 and 2004 were not mentioned, this could possibly mean that the full abolition can be pushed forward. Mr. van Weddingen, you have more experience in this matter than I do, but I would like to pay tribute to your ability to draw comfort from positive thoughts. After all, your views on this subject are, in my opinion, crossed by the argument of Mr. Tavernier, who between two full-sentence stated that he considers the abolition of the crisis contribution as an element of the tax reform. This, however, does not matter, Mr. Tavernier, because this commitment is made in the explanatory memo that is part of this draft and is therefore separate from the fiscal reform. In the committee, tax reform is often discussed on the basis of oral questions, and every time you refer – rightly – to the fact that the subject of the questions must fit into a whole and that such questions in fact relate to the global tax reform. If the abolition of the crisis contribution really costs money to the government, then the PRL acknowledges, on behalf of Mr. van Weddingen, that it is only a partial abolition that may be anticipated, while AGALEV, on behalf of Mr. Tavernier, ⁇ considers the project limited and shifts the subject to the debate on the fiscal reform. However, this is not correct, Mr. Tavernier, because the fact that a minister assumes his responsibilities and submits a bill promising in the memorandum of explanation a complete abolition of the crisis contribution, automatically separates this file from the fiscal reform. Mr. Minister, given the budgetary fuel consumption of your coalition and given the resources you need to mobilise to maintain its consistency, day after day, week after week, month after month, I fear that it will be ⁇ difficult to find the necessary budgetary space for your coalition to accept a solid fiscal reform. If you wait a long time with your note d’orientation, it might be that necessary margin has long been squeezed by other sweets that you need to distribute to your dying coalition partners to maintain the unity. Furthermore, with regard to another measure in this draft, which we do not actually decide on, in particular the measure concerning the merchant shipping and bagger sectors and, if expanded, also the drag sector, your coalition does not show unanimity either. The coalition does not show much unanimity in this regard – I use a term that is understandable for both language groups. We found in the committee that there were two or three amendments and that not all majority groups supported this initiative. For a number of intellectually defensive reasons, Ecolo colleague Viseur opposed the adoption of a number of fiscal measures for those sectors. The government amendment may also have been a gift from heaven to avoid a split vote. The mandate inscribed in the government amendment allows you to save the face. Especially in your case, I find it a pity that this had to be done by authority. But in any case, I note that the government was and was divided on this aspect.

I think you have a great sense of drama.

When we see how the first major bill is submitted, one can hardly have anything but a sense of drama. With this first bill, after five to six months, one already speaks in very widespread order, amendments are submitted, and only at the slightest point - using the karwats - one manages to restore the unity somewhat. However, we see the Greens group abstaining from the amendment. We are therefore looking forward to the debates, although Mr. Tavernier will also pass on the agenda here and settle on what is dictated by the government. Then I come to the last chapter of my speech. I continue to repeat that we are proud of the efforts made in the past to reach the current budgetary sanitation. Now there are boundaries and the majority – by the mouth of Mr. van Weddingen – emphasizes that one can happily boast of this government that luckily reduces taxes. The previous coalition would not have done this. In all clarity, Mr. Minister, colleagues of the majority, we too are in favor of tax cuts. Who would we be to have anything against it? I just want to say that what you can do now – in a very modest way, and not in the amount of 80 billion – is the merit of the population and of people who in this parliament have had the courage to take unpopular measures. The triumphalism with which the trend break with the past is concentrated around tax cuts is disappointing. It is always forgotten to repeat that the population and former policymakers have made the necessary efforts to enable the tax reduction proposed by this government. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, my last observation relates to the chosen technique for the abolition of the crisis contribution. I agree with the position of Mr. Van Weddingen. From the mouth of a member of the former coalition, this may sound a little hypocritical. After all, in the recent past, very complex measures have been taken that contaminate our tax legislation to the present day. However, the CVP emphasizes that the method of reducing the crisis contribution is not only contrary to one of our own political objectives as Christian Democrats but above all to an important principle of fiscality in the government agreement. The path chosen by the government to reduce the crisis contribution introduces a new discrimination to the detriment of the married. The abolition is linked to the amount of the collectively taxable income. We will submit our amendment on this subject again. This is a very modest bill. The CVP is not against the proposed tax cuts. However, my group would like to emphasize that the measures are very modest. Moreover, the government is not sufficiently accountable for past efforts to enable the current modest measures.

Mijnheer de voorzitter, collega's, i thank of rapporteur in de bevoegde commission voor het puike werk. Because of tax in parafiscal druk op inkomens uit arbeid in Belgium zeer hoog is in this system nefast is for de werkgelegenheid, has de regering beslist terzake maatregelen uit te werken. De regering zal een ontwerp tot herziening van de personenbelasting indienen. De burger zal deze hervorming echter niet moeten afwachten om van van een belastingvermindering te kunnen genieten. De regering wil een aantal maatregelen uitwerken die onmiddellijk gunstige gevolgen zullen have op de fiscale druk. I som ze op: de herindexering van de belastingschalen, de geleidelijke afschaffing van de aanvullende crisisbijdrage, de vermindering van de BTW van 21 naar 6% op een aantal arbeidsintensieve diensten in een verbetering van de fiscale aftrek voor kinderopvang. Het wetsontwerp heeft tevens tot doel de kosteloosheid van de naturalisatieprocedure te verzekeren. In het verlengde van de door van de vorige regering binnen het kader van sociale aangelegenheden gevoerde acties zullen trouwens fiscal maatregelen worden voorgesteld met het oog op het behoud van of competitive position in de tewerkstelling in bepaalde sectoren van eleven economie die stark underhevig zijn aan international competition. In this regard, the Commission has also completed the draft. I have talked about sometimes technical improvements to the text. In terms of competitive position, the Commission has conducted a very interesting debate. I have proposed this amendment allowing the government, by royal decree deliberated in council, to extend the measures to the trailer sector, beyond the merchant navy and the dragging sector. In this regard, I would simply like to clarify that, as will be the case in social matters, the government will immediately notify the European Commission of its intention to extend this measure to the trailer sector. Then, of course, I will submit a draft arrest to my colleagues in council. We will then see what decision will be made. I would now like to make a few remarks regarding a number of criticisms that we will probably have the opportunity to return to during the budget debate. I confirm here what I said in the committee, namely that if measures to reduce the fiscal pressure, like the parafiscal pressure, can intervene today, it is the result of constant or almost constant efforts to sanitize the public finances agreed for about twenty years and supported essentially by our fellow citizens. I say almost constantly because a significant effort to sanitize public finances was made from 1981 to 1988 and ⁇ also from 1992 to 1999. Unfortunately, as I have had the opportunity to specify in the commission, between 1988 and 1992, we have not seen the deficit of public finances decrease. The net balance to be financed remained, consistently, at 7% of the gross domestic product. It is likely that if, during this period, we had taken advantage of the fruits of growth – important at the time – to further reduce the net balance to be financed, we would already today discuss the fiscal reform that I will propose next year, and not just first measures, as many have mentioned in their speeches. Secondly, what about the available budget margin? We will ⁇ conduct this debate several times. I try to make budget margins and concrete proposals compatible. We did so by submitting both the 2000 Budget and the Tax Program Law. I try to understand some criticism about narrow budget margins and the lack of fiscal ambition. Indeed, I have read a number of proposed amendments and bills, which almost all aim either to accelerate the reduction of the tax pressure on work – to reduce once or more quickly the complementary crisis contribution – or to lower more significantly the VAT on construction. In other areas, it is proposed to reduce excise duties on mineral water or limonade. However, all these measures go in the same direction: reduce the tax pressure even more sharply. So I try to understand how we can at the same time, during the budget debate, blame ourselves for going too fast in this reduction, and at the same time submit so many texts that go in the direction of an even stronger, even more accelerated reduction of the fiscal pressure. That being said, I would not like to continue the long debate on the indexation of tax rates. The report is very explicit on this subject and it traces the historical background. I would simply say that my intention when writing the explanation of the reasons was to give very clear the position of the government on this problem. In other words, we want to ⁇ a comprehensive reindexation of tax patterns. We want to put it on the pre-accounts — which was not entirely the case — and in this context, we would like to announce that there will be no new suspension measure. I know that the debate has already taken place. Maybe this will be the last time I’m going to repeat it, but I’m not so convinced of it. It is true that before the elections of June 1999 as well as before those of 1995, the full indexation of tax rates had been announced and even carried out by legislative measures. It is equally true that in 1996, with the only difference that it was after the electoral deadline, suspension decisions were made for the following two years. I think it is useful to clarify to our fellow citizens in an explanation of the reasons that there will be no further suspension, once the elections have passed. As I said maybe a little quickly in the committee, I repeat it a little more slowly in the plenary session, it is interesting to note that, once the promises made before the electoral deadline will be kept. The change in the composition of the majority may have an impact on this matter, just as the change in political orientation at the head of the Department of Finance, I will return to it. I find it important to clearly announce the color for the next exercise. There will be no new suspension of the indexation of tax rates, indexation introduced in the first time by M. Grootjans in the reform of 1985. Beyond this question, I understand the criticism of Mr. Visitor and Mr. Tavernier on Article 4. As for the competitive position of a number of companies, I am not even convinced, besides, that the measures we are taking will be sufficient. It is likely that the competition will continue to be stronger, sometimes with crews coming from countries outside the European Union. The logic that we have followed in this matter, which had already been decided by the previous government, is essentially to try, within the European framework, to make favorable arrangements for the companies of the merchant navy, dragging and maybe tomorrow towing, which bear European flag. I repeat, it may not be enough. We will probably still come to offer us the services of other types of companies, either flagging outside the European Union, or using staff from countries outside the European Union. by Mr. Viser was right to link the debate with the WTO. This dossier is a whole but this debate must not lead us to make unilateral gestures and to abandon the competitive capacity of our companies, to the benefit of any principle whatsoever, when other states near or far away do not take the same step as us. I will ⁇ return to it in the coming days when we discuss the results, if I can qualify the conclusions of the Helsinki European Council on taxation. We take the same approach. We want to progress towards harmonization, but we must all move in the same direction. I believe that we also have an interest in defending the competitive capacity of our companies. In response to Ms. Moerman’s remarks, I confirm that the debate will actually open between my department and the horeca sector regarding the various arrangements that can be imagined to be taken to strengthen activity in this area. It’s not just about tax provisions – the reduction of the social burden will have an impact on the horeca sector but I would like to open a discussion on the possible tax measures in relation to this sector. I recall that a number of party presidents have pledged to take tax arrangements, in particular for restoration. I will also have to incorporate these commitments into my reflection with the sector, but this debate will open up. Likewise, as I announced in the committee, I will ask the Plan Bureau and the Finance Study Department to examine the situation in the construction sector and to see to what extent VAT reductions for new construction can actually have a positive impact. I hope this review is really contradictory this time. This has not always been the case in the past. Industry representatives should have the opportunity to discuss the findings of the plan office or the study department of my department. Regarding the complementary crisis contribution, the text you are proposing has indeed – we might regret it, Mr. Van Weddingen referred to it - a retroactive effect. Fortunately, I have not received any comment from the State Council on this matter. We may put this text into force, including to make it applicable to prometered income, before the entry into office of the government. As it is a tax reduction, if the State Council had no comments to make, you also have no comments. The commitment is clear: we are making arrangements for revenues 1999 and 2000. In the statement of reasons, I first specified what would be the modalities in 2001 and in subsequent years depending on the budgetary situation. At this rate there, or even faster, we will remove the complementary crisis contribution, but by indicating very clearly from today – I think it is useful – the budgetary consequences of the initiative. They are on pages 8 and 9 of the report. I refer you to the table in Dutch - the numbers remaining Arabic because the table in French is not correct on one of the reference years. I would like to further clarify a few points mentioned by the speakers. I confirm that with regard to the deductibility of the costs incurred by individuals for employing personnel at home, there will not only be a debate within the government in the very coming weeks, but there will also be an integration of this measure in the whole parliamentary debate that will take place on the fight against black labour. In this context, I would like to develop a proposal simplifying a number of current provisions of the Code, in particular Article 104, which provides for sufficiently strict conditions to be able to deduct from its income the costs incurred when employing personnel. It seems to me quite logical to encourage individuals to hire staff at least as much as it does for companies. If we want to fight for employment, we must do so both by helping companies to hire and by helping individuals who want to do so to accomplish this operation. In both cases, the community will do better. by Mr. Borginon talked about the problem of tax autonomy. There will ⁇ be a debate on this subject, including in other halls. If an inter-parliamentary and inter-governmental conference has been set up, it is good to discuss a number of topics. I would, of course, be happy to participate in this discussion if this conference is invited by the Minister of Finance. I would like to remind you that with regard to the first measures announced in the 2000 budget of the Flemish Government, I confirm the position I had adopted as a committee: from the moment the measures envisaged are linear and flat-rate, I have no comments to make. I would have a comment to make whether the measure should be differentiated by type or by income category. If we respect the funding law, I obviously have no comment to make. This was the meaning of my interventions at the time when the budget was announced, this is still the meaning of my interventions now that the measure has been specified in its linear and flat-rate character, at the competition of 3,2 billion, which, everyone will agree, does not endanger the economic and monetary union of the country. I have confirmed this to the government. Finally, Mr. Speaker, it is true that the proposed measures are only a first part of the fiscal measures that will take place during the legislature. Many other topics than the tax on natural persons or the few elements mentioned in the text on VAT or support to business sectors will need to be addressed. I think in particular of mobility, energy, and various themes that appear in the government declaration such as the city policy. All this will be done in consultation with a number of colleagues within the government. I also think, of course, of the tax reform that will be presented next autumn. We talked about reversing the trend, I would like, to conclude, to reassure Mr. by Paque. I am pleased to hear the comment from his group in the plenary session. I did not have the pleasure of hearing this opinion, in the committee, either during the discussion of the budget, or during the discussion of the tax law. But it is never too late to do well; I reassure you, Mr. Paque. My intention is to reverse the trend from what has been done in tax matters within my department over the past ten years. Thus, in terms of tax levies on the income of natural persons, I would like to stop the trend of the last ten years that has led - the report confirms it - to additional levies at the rate of 378 billion francs on natural persons, this exclusively through the non-indexation of tax rates and the additional crisis contribution. I repeat that the trend reversal will be very clear in this matter. Indirect tax reductions will – if you wish, I will give you the list – unlike a number of measures taken budget after budget to increase the total of indirect taxes in our country, help to reduce the tax pressure. As I have said before on various issues, my intention is to reduce the tax pressure on work. This will be a tax reform comparable to the one proposed by Mr. Grootjans, in 1985, who wanted to reduce the tax pressure on labor. It is therefore in no way comparable to the latest tax reform at the time, which the minister-in-chief of the department himself said was neutral. In other words, that she took from one hand what she gave from the other. Everyone will remember, for example, the deductibilities of restaurant costs or clothing reduced to percentages somewhat special and exclusive to our country. In all these areas, I really want to reverse the trend. It is in this perspective that the government statement provides as a line of conduct of the legislature - which is a first - a constant reduction of the fiscal and parafiscal pressure and in particular on work. In conclusion, I would like to tell you, almost for the anecdote, that I did not understand the information that was given to you on one of the points. I think of the European VAT. It is true that I did not have the pleasure of receiving the records of my predecessor. It seems like this is a new tradition but it is still that when I arrived, the Finance Cabinet was completely virgin of any file. However, I can tell you that if the decision had already been made, we would not have devoted so much time to meetings of the European Council of Ministers of Economy and Finance (ECOFIN). We also attended an exceptional session in the former capital of Finland, Turku, for an entire day. So we had to negotiate for days and days to try to reach a European decision for a VAT reduction for certain sectors. Once this list was obtained, with the active support of the French Minister of Economy and Finance at the time, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I was finally able to address the Belgian government and propose VAT reductions in certain sectors. But to say that the decision was made at the European level would be inaccurate: it is enough to refer to the press of the last six months to realize that all this was not accomplished and did not appear in texts from the Council of European Ministers. This example to tell you that in some areas, indeed, the trend will be reversed in tax matters. I am happy to be able to present texts that alleviate this burden, but I am also conscious, like Mr. Leterme, that the main debate will take place from next fall and will cover the entire tax reform on labor income. Even if other texts come in, it will probably be at that time that the fundamental debate on burden reduction will take place. This being said, by the end of the legislature, to result in a reduction of the charges of the order of 80 billion francs, on an annual basis - to regain a formula that a former prime minister loved very much - this is already a fairly significant first step that we are realizing with this project. I am pleased that all the groups either support this initiative or do not show any opposition. This is not bad already in a tax project and, above all, in a tax-program law.