Proposition 50K1895

Proposition de résolution relative à la reconnaissance des affections musculo-squelettiques comme maladie professionnelle.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Greta D'hondt, Jo Vandeurzen

Submission date

June 27, 2002

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

occupational disease resolution of parliament illness

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA MR FN VB

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Discussion ¶

July 20, 2002 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I refer to the written report. However, I must also give an oral report on an additional committee meeting where two amendments were discussed.

Following the plenary session of 17 July 2002, the Committee on Trade and Economic Law met again to address the two additional amendments 20 and 21. Amendment 20 was explained by the applicant, Mr Desimpel. It aims to limit the scope of Article 1a of the Breyne Act to ensure that a large number of group housing projects would not be covered by the new provision on linked sales. Their

Mr. Bourgeois believes that the proposed provision can fully summarize the bill, in which several colleagues assisted him. The applicant then clarified that he is talking about housing and group building.

On Amendment No. 21, the applicant, Mr. Desimpel, stated that he would like the Breyne Act to apply to housing companies and farm companies as well as to municipalities and intercommunals. Mr. Bourgeois replied that this is unacceptable for him because social housing companies have very different goals than private building promoters. Furthermore, according to Mr. Bourgeois, this is a regional competence. Mr Desimpel therefore announced that he was prepared to withdraw Amendment 21 if Amendment 20 was adopted.

Then the committee went to the vote. Amendment 20 was adopted by six votes in favour and five votes against. Amendment 21 was subsequently repealed. The bill was eventually adopted with seven votes for and five abstentions.

First of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur for the written and oral parts of the report. The report gave a start to the way in which the discussion of this bill was conducted. It was an intense, but often turbulent discussion. It began on 21 March and was completed on 4 July 2002 by unanimous approval, though it was after amendment of the original bill. Well, this amendment does not make us happy and I will return to it later.

Colleagues, what is it about? Construction land in the form of equipped pavements and plots located on an equipped road is becoming increasingly scarce. The Flemish government is rightly pursuing a policy of strengthening the urban nucleus. On the other hand, according to the Minister of Spatial Planning, there is still sufficient construction land. However, much of that construction land is not marketed, there is speculation, construction land is purchased and not released.

Furthermore, there has been and still exists a tendency in which more and more deployments in their entirety are in the hands of project developers or construction promoters. For example, colleague Bourgeois has stated that in his municipality, Izegem, during the last years there was only one free discharge approved out of a total of seven. Free deployment means a deployment in which the buyer is not obliged to build with the seller of the land. Their

This problem does not occur in a single municipality. Mr Bourgeois, who submitted the proposal, received dozens of responses from all over Flanders. He has already submitted a fair number of bills, but has never received so many positive responses. Colleagues, we are urged from all over Flanders to approve this bill. Their

To date, there are no adequate legal remedies against these practices. A building-loving buyer who waives the construction obligation with the seller or the contractor designated by him must proceed for years without any guarantee of success. In this way, many people are forced to build with a promoter or contractor without really wanting it. In addition, they are forced to go to sea with the architect designated by the construction promoter. They often do not have a lot of choice and because of working conditions they want to go to live in a certain area and they can only buy a plot in a "bound square".

In this way, an oligopoly has emerged against which many complaints are expressed by both the small craftsmen, the tens of thousands of contractors of housing construction and housing finishing that have been pushed out of the market, unless they want to work as a kind of phony self-employed for building promoters, by thousands of architects and by hundreds of thousands of consumers. I refer to the repeated views of TestAkkup and various architectural associations. Indeed, because of the construction federation, protests have been raised against this bill, but we have received dozens and dozens of responses from small contractors who rightly assert that the Construction Federation here only defended the interests of eight large promoter contractors and not those of the many small contractors.

I would like to point out that the major building promoters have developed a false argument. They deny, on the one hand, that they have an oligopoly and, on the other hand, they claim that the price of the construction land will rise with the approval of the bill.

It is of two things one. Either they hold only a small percentage of the construction land — which is not the case today — and then the bill cannot have any influence on the construction land price. There is an unhealthy oligopoly that needs to be broken. In that case, it should not be feared that the price of the construction land will rise. After all, the major construction promoters will still have to market their construction land at a competitive price. In addition, the market for failing housing will be liberated, so that competition will play a greater role there. This is the content of the bill.

It should be clear that the so-called link selling is not prohibited. Thus, whoever wants to build with the promoter who also sold the land or with a contractor designated by the seller can and can still do so. Construction promotion has gained a place in the market and should therefore indeed remain possible. A number of building enthusiasts want to entrust the construction of the house to a promoter who arranges for them everything from a to z, which is their good right. However, the bill stipulates that no one can be forced to make the link sale. Thus, the person who purchased a plot of land with a clause of construction obligation in the purchase contract or who concluded an acquisition agreement with the seller of the land, a sister or subsidiary company of him or a third person designated by him may invoke the nullity of the clause or the agreement not later than one month after the death of the notarial act. That is the scope of this bill.

The text of the law must be indicated in the grey on the sales contract and must also be in the notarial act. Notaries have a special obligation to provide information.

There was consensus in the committee on the scope of the bill. I would also like to express my thanks on behalf of the applicant of the bill, Mr. Bourgeois, to all my colleagues, as well as to the Government, which has made an important contribution to the drafting of the bill. Indeed, the concept of the bill was significantly weakened and in two ways. First, a transitional provision was introduced in order that the law still does not apply to land owned by the construction promoters on 30 June 2002, i.e. the notarial act of purchase was registered by the seller on 30 June 2002. For these reasons, the law shall not enter into force until 1 January 2004.

Second, a significant part of the bill was rejected for incomprehensible reasons and without prior discussion on Mr. Desimpel’s dictates. This was about the provision that a buyer or a building owner of a property within the scope of the Breyne Act must resort to the cooperation of a consulting architect. Now it is true that the architect is designated by the promoter and that he cannot serve two lords at the same time. In this way, a buyer or a building master stands only in front of a promoter and his architect, two professional players on the market. The role of the architect is of public order. The architect must watch over the spatial planning, the living environment, the stability and health of the home and many other important matters.

It is therefore incomprehensible that this legislative amendment, which has been demanded for years by consumer associations and architects across the country, has been rejected. Whoever is responsible for it will bear the consequences. As I said before, however, a consensus was eventually reached in the Committee on Trade and Economic Law. After animated discussions and interesting hearings during several meetings, the weakened or amputated bill was unanimously approved.

Mr. Minister, colleagues, what happened next is quite unique. Following a request from colleague Desimpel, the so-called debates in the committee charged with the problems relating to Trade and Economic Law were reopened. Sometimes a proposal or draft approved in the committee is returned to the committee during a plenary session. Usually, then corrections must be made or forgetfulnesses added. In this case, however, it was an attack on the essence of the bill.

Mr Desimpel managed to have his Amendment No. 20 adopted. As a result, the law now stipulates that it does not apply to group housing construction projects. I would like to draw your attention to the concept of ‘group housing’. For the VLD and colleague Desimpel, it is apparently no problem that this new concept is not defined anywhere. Federal law does not know the concept. Even in the Flemish decree, the term is not defined. In Wallonia the concept would have been somewhat more elaborated. Today, however, there is no clear definition of the content of the concept of ‘group housing’.

Amendment 20 clearly opens the door for mass bypass. The consumer organization TestAbuy has already strongly protested. In my opinion, it is important that Parliament not only listen to the defense of the interests of the lobbyists of construction promoters and contractors, but that the interests of consumers are also defended. In any case, the architects and small contractors are extremely dissatisfied with the acceptance of that amendment. Therefore, together with colleagues from CD&V, SP.A and Agalev, I submitted an amendment repealing Mr Desimpel’s amendment.

Mr Desimpel also submitted an amendment number 21. That amendment ensured that the ban on linked sales would apply to social housing companies. This is unheard of course. Social housing is a competence of the regions. Furthermore, the Breyne Act does not apply to social housing construction. The law-Breyne aims to provide buyers with guarantees against private promoters. The decretal legislation of course provides for guarantees and protection for buyers who buy from social housing companies. There can be no discrimination. A social housing company has a social purpose and not a profit goal. Different situations may be treated differently by the legislature, to the extent that such treatment is reasonable and reasonable. It is so in this case. Their

It only shows that the manner in which Mr. Desimpel submitted a number of amendments subsequently would only cause this bill to complicate a number of important interests of ordinary construction enthusiasts. Collega Desimpel wanted to submit subsequently amendments that clearly disagree with the bill.

Of course, we continue to support the proposal of colleague Bourgeois. It aims to obtain the prohibition of forced link selling. We ask you to approve the amendment, which was submitted together with Mrs Schauvliege, Mr Tavernier and Mr Van der Maelen. In this way you demonstrate that you are resisting the lobby of the major building promoters. I have already mentioned that those promoters will, by the way, continue to retain all their opportunities in the construction market.

They will then find themselves in a balanced situation. For the builder who does not want to appeal to a building promoter but to his own architect and to the small contractor in whom he has trusted, this should remain possible. The big promoters will continue to retain their chances. The Senate has proven to be able to resist Ecclestone. There is no less to be expected from the room. In this way, we prove a great service to consumers, architects and contractors. You approve a bill that is good for both the market and the consumer.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Van Hoorebeke has just made a summary of the debates. I will therefore be able to be quite brief by saying first that we supported the text in committee even though it was amended. On the principle in any case, I actually think that it is a good text that places the guards where they need to be. It has a fundamental purpose of protecting the consumer. We have supported it in the committee.

What is debated today is obviously the problem of the amendment that was introduced by Mr. In the last meeting of the committee yesterday and the amendment submitted today by some colleagues, including Mr. Van Hoorebeke, who try to return to the previous state of the text. by

Without wanting to be too technical, I believe that we must ensure that the text voted can apply not only to the consumer who buys a land in order to build but also to the consumer who wants to buy a land that is part of a settlement, i.e. a set of land for sale. by

The amendment of Mr. Desimpel aimed at first glance at the hypothesis of grouped constructions. In this case, it is in my sense a promoter who manages a project from the beginning to the end, in the sense that he is the owner of a land he possibly pieces, that he even builds to sell these houses later; or, he sells the houses on planes but, anyway, he has already made the decision to build them.

Two comments in this regard. The problem comes from the fact that we are working with regional legislation. In the Walloon Region, there is already an article 126 of the Walloon Code of Territorial Planning, aiming precisely at the problem of grouped constructions. Thus, in the Walloon region this is already a clearly defined notion. Therefore, when I read in the amendment of Mr. Desimpel "group constructions", this calls for a notion that is not susceptible to extensive interpretation.

The problem is that this does not seem to be the case in the north of the country, where this definition does not exist and where we are therefore a little in the blur. by

In my opinion – I have said it and repeated it in the committee – the amendment of Mr. Desimpel is not necessary in so far as the text of the bill proposal does not address this hypothesis but rather that of the consumer who buys a land in order to build himself or of the individual who buys a land in a plot to build too.

This text does not apply to the hypothesis of buying a flat house or a house already built. by

First, I consider that the amendment is not necessary and that the text as it is should reassure Mr. Desimpel.

Then, given the absence of specific regulation in some parts of the country, the amendment may result in extensive interpretation, not in Wallonia but elsewhere, where one could deduce that the bill does not apply to land plots, for example, that is, to the sale of a set of land derived from the splitting of a larger plot. This interpretation is dangerous and, in my opinion, it cannot be followed.

I understand the intention of the authors of the amendment submitted after the submission of the report but I would like to tell Mr. Desimpel that, in my opinion, his amendment and his concerns are unfounded.

Are there any other members registered in the general discussion?

Mr. Speaker, Mr. 25.04 Minister, colleagues, I would of course like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs. Schauvliege, for her comprehensive report and especially the final section on the talks that took place a few days ago. I also thank the previous speakers, Mr. Van Hoorebeke and Giet, for their contribution to the debate.

Let me start with Mr. Giet. I think his clarifications and comments are much more moderate than those of Mr. Van Hoorebeke. However, it can be said that during the discussion in the committee in fine it was established that one could eventually face technical problems in the application of the legislation. There are several paths to catch them. Mr Desimpel eventually submitted an amendment, although there were other options to correct it. It can also be said that Mr. Desimpel was so fair that he did not block the case by requesting a second reading.

I will then come to the presentation of Mr. Van Hoorebeke. He gave a very good and core-like overview. He said the debate was intense and that was indeed the case for this important issue. He also said the debate was turbulent. When did it become turbulent? At a certain point, the matter came to the press and the conversations gained a different dimension. Despite being next to Mr. Desimpel, I do not belong to the lobby of the promoters. I am a free man. I would like to point out that our group unanimously approved this issue. That can also be said. There has never been any discussion in the committee about the intention to curb the abuses of linked sales. However, certain factual conditions were faced which differ in the north and south of the country, and more specifically in my province. We have cooperated properly. There can be no discussion about that. We have addressed the essential question of the consumer, namely whether more construction land will be available and whether it will be cheaper. This can also be a problem in the long run, but this is not within the federal competence. We have therefore also given an incentive to allow the regions to play their role, despite the fact that we wanted to defend the consumer in the first place.

We have not softened the provisions; we have simply taken into account the reality after hearing various stakeholders.

For this reason, we unanimously concluded that it would be best to postpone the application of the law until 2004 to avoid those who have made investments in the past facing insurmountable financial difficulties.

Mr Van Hoorebeke regretted that the mandatory appointment of a second architect was not approved. I would like to remind you that this was unanimously accepted because it was not intended to impose additional costs on the consumer.

In short, we have behaved correctly in the case. We unanimously approved the bill. In addition, an evaluation was also introduced unanimously.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, it is a good thing that this is a bill that has also been thoroughly discussed in the committee. It is sometimes a breathtaking moment for many colleagues when they are given the necessary time to discuss texts thoroughly.

The problem, which is addressed by this bill, is real. However, we must be careful that we consider the measure as the nec plus ultra by which all problems will be solved. The bill should actually be only one element in a overall policy to make construction land available at an affordable price. All this should be framed in a spatial policy that also seeks to expand and renew the urban core. We must make sure that we drive the policies of the different regions in the wheels. However, this does not prevent us, as federal legislators, from taking our share of responsibility on us. I think the bill is a step in the right direction.

I can follow the reasoning of colleague Giet. Indeed, we do not have to regulate anything at the federal level which makes possible different interpretations of what is regulated by decrees at the regional level. For this reason, I think we should return to the original text. I think that additional aspects can be discussed at a later stage.

For this reason, I maintain the amendment submitted in the plenary session. I would like to point out that the provision of a too extensive transition period could work counterproductively. Given the announcement effect, I think we need to act in the short term.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, the industry is rarely speaking here, because it is very poorly represented. I would like to express the position of the Confederation of Construction Enterprises and of the contractor world. They were opposed to the law-Bourgeois, but that problem has been resolved by a transitional measure. Nevertheless, I would like to add a few concerns.

It has been shown that after a year the Minister will review this law. Since all this has appeared in the press, we already know that the construction land in our country and in Flanders will increase in price enormously by the law. That is absolutely a fact. Then there is the question of architects. That was indeed not approved, because two architects for a building what is good is too much and this also makes the construction more expensive. Yesterday, an amendment was discussed that was accepted with 6 against 5, in which group housing construction would not fall under this law. In a further explanation it was said that it would be group housing construction of more than 10 houses and that form a certain architectural whole. If this amendment is repealed, it will be another blow for the construction industry. The construction sector, which is already in a major crisis, would then again be hit. Group housing construction and housing settlements will no longer be possible in the future. If Mr Van Hoorebeke’s amendment is accepted, I suspect that the whole should be referred to the committee again.

First and foremost, I would like to thank the rapporteur and colleagues for their contribution on this matter. Mr. Lano has rightly noted that everyone has worked very constructively on this. This is not at issue here. In the end, a very balanced and good bill came out of the bus.

However, we deeply regret the amendment made by Mr. Desimpel and in this regard I agree with Mr. Tavernier. Collega Desimpel has introduced an exception for projects of group housing construction. For us, this is not possible because there is no clear definition. Collega Desimpel says that the report will refer to a minimum of 10 homes and an architectural whole. However, this is not recorded in the law. We therefore believe that this amendment cannot be made because there is no definition and the law therefore will not give clarity. In this sense, we would like to maintain and support the amendment that provides for the removal of this amendment.