Proposition 50K2285

Projet de loi modifiant la loi-programme du 10 février 1998 pour la promotion de l'entreprise indépendante.

General information ¶

Submitted by

Groen Open Vld Vooruit PS | SP Ecolo MR Verhofstadt Ⅰ

Submission date

Feb. 11, 2003

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

tax incentive small business small and medium-sized enterprises medium-sized business State aid town-planning profession liberal profession self-employed person

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld MR

Abstained from voting

CD&V FN VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Jean-Pierre Detremmerie (LE) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Feb. 27, 2003 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the word for your report. I see that the draft has been dealt with very quickly in the committee, and also today in the Chamber if it goes well.

Mr. Speaker, it has had a lot of feet in the earth before we have been able to proceed in our committee to the discussion of this bill. On June 19, around 17:00, Minister Daems was able to convince us to start the discussions. In the beginning, the ladies Brepoels and Pieters thought that they could bring us down to postpone the discussions for a moment.

Once we were busy, the job was done in a few hours. The Minister gave clear explanations. There was quite a bit of commotion about a advice from the High Council for the Self-employed, which was not immediately available, but after a while Mrs. Pieters came with the advice, which she already had in her possession. Minister Daems noted that the very quick Mrs. Pieters had the advice before we had it.

What is it about? The draft law includes a number of amendments to the Program Law of 10 February 1998 on the promotion of self-employed entrepreneurship in order to realize a significant administrative simplification for self-employed and entrepreneurs, especially when starting a self-employed profession. In fact, it is primarily a major improvement for the identified deficits.

Yesterday we approved the report, even with nine with one abstinence. At the end of the day, all members were pleased that this bill could be voted today.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, for once I will not have to talk about the content of the present bill. Why should I not discuss the content of the bill? The reason is very simple that we were not given time to study the bill.

The bill was sent to the opposition colleagues, Mrs. Brepoels and myself, with the morning post. Some of our colleagues did not even get it at all. We heard from Mrs. Gerkens that she had the design already in her possession two days earlier. We have the question of whether the problem at The Post did not dare to ask the Minister. We would be in a completely different debate.

The debate remains whether the rest of the majority had the texts or not. However, that was not the question. There was general silence on the banks of VLD, PS, SP.A, MR. There was no discussion, no content, no question. There were no comments, with the exception of Mrs. Gerkens. I would like to add that.

A member shoot up when his gsm ring. Another member needed the full session to review other, engaging texts. Who knows, these were the future bills of this government. Was it the program laws he already had in his possession?

However, the majority was mouthful in translating his master’s voice. One time that was the voice of Mr. Verhofstadt. The other time it was the voice of Mr. Picqué. They wanted to overthrow the agenda. They wanted to include new changes on the agenda. You know what it is about. It is about the laws on the country insurance contracts and on flooding. These laws were the priority of the voiceVerhofstadt. Everything had to be completed by March 1, 2003. The laws on the commercial establishments and on the land meter experts were also a priority.

Dear colleagues, you should know that the landmeters and their related professions have been camping in our committee for weeks. They wanted to know what their profession would look like in the future. They remained on guard during the Wednesday afternoon meeting until after 20:00. His master’s voice himself — not Mr Picqué of Verhofstadt — had said that the draft would still be discussed after the KMO Programme Act. However, he did not listen properly to what the Minister had said. The Minister had said in his introduction that there was something else to be discussed about landmeters. So the landmeters remained sitting. Apparently they were still having fun. They could even try to bring together their divergent views in the walkways, whether or not supported by some members of the majority, in order to come to reconciliation.

I would like to go back to the draft law.

Without even looking at a text, the Minister began his presentation and his explanation. His masters voice had already said that we should not have knowledge of the draft and that the minister — and he knew it very well — would limit himself to an explanation, to an explanation. The minister was indeed very hasty and the bill was ⁇ urgent, as it would provide employment for as many as a thousand people.

The first preliminary draft was already sent to the High Council for Self-Employed Persons and SMEs on 31 May 2001 for advice. The second preliminary draft was submitted for advice on 16 January 2002. Only now, another year later, will the draft be submitted to Parliament. A procession of Echternach. However, it is a ⁇ simple draft law that contains few important provisions.

For four years, the VLD lacked the power to translate intentions into concrete texts. For four years, no progress has been made in the simplification and easing of the establishment regulations of the professions regulated in the Entrepreneurship Act, by Karel Pinxten. We asked the Minister where those thousands of jobs are located. Well, in the quick look at the program law, we may have looked at it; we had not seen that through this program law a thousand jobs could be created. But yes, if you have to look at the documents so quickly, then you can already overlook something.

What we have seen is that the bill eases procedures, but in no way changes the regulation. One of the VLD’s complaints on the Bill-Pinxten, five years ago, was the VLD’s note that there were too many provisions of the type “the King can”. Apparently, at that time, however, there were still insufficient provisions of the type "the King can", because this draft extends the regulation by the legislative power even further to grant even more power and maneuvering space to the King.

I would also like to point out that, at that time, the CD&V group proposed the abolition of the provisions relating to the status of self-employed trainees through an amendment by Mr. Luc Willems, since those provisions interfere with regional powers.

I will return to the atmosphere in the committee. We tried to get the discussion somewhat up and asked for the advice of the High Council for Self-employed and SMEs. After long questions, we noticed that the minister’s co-worker grabbed the phone and the minister was able to tell that the advice was coming. We could hardly believe it, but when the advice arrived, it turned out to be the wrong advice. It was the opinion of the State Council, which was already attached to the draft law, but which we obviously had not yet been able to read due to lack of time. Per ⁇ the silent majority.

During an interruption, we even went to seek the advice. We quickly realized that, as we expected, some essential comments were made by the Supreme Council. As stated in the report, we have submitted a number of amendments with competent urgency. The Minister accepted one two and did not accept two. He would have known what was in the advice. The landmeters watched and apparently still amused. It was already after 20 hours.

The morality of the story is the following. This is how our laws are made. The majority, after Ms. Gerkens, was completely absent. There was a minority who would prefer not to be informed. And there was a professional group—the landmeters-experts—who from all corners of the country have been bragging this spectacle for weeks. They already know what laws are. They hope that their professional future will be sealed with more seriousness.

It is a story without content, but a chronology of what has taken place in the committee. I bring you this story because you would know how certain commissions work. Ladies and gentlemen, we have abstained. We did this not because of the content of the bill, but because of the wicked way in which we are forced to work in this Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, listening to Mrs. Pieters, I can only share the way she describes the course of our work. As for the date on which we received the project, for already a year, I chose to mail to the Chamber rather than home mail, which actually makes me earn between one and two days to get the texts. I had them available from Monday morning.

Regarding the content, I would like to say that among the elements of this project, I am ⁇ satisfied with the possibility offered to be able to take into account the accompaniment that a self-employed who creates his business can benefit from or use as a proof of competence. I think this is a way to encourage the creation of ⁇ , to allow access for more to this type of activity, while taking the necessary precautions to avoid avoidable bankruptcies when people have their skills.

This is obviously the essence of this project, although I share the objective of the possibilities of simplifications which prove quite useful and which will from now on have to be settled outside the corporatist bodies of very specific professions, so that a more global and more interactive look can take place.

I fully agree with Ms. Pieters’ analysis of how the work went, but I am sometimes surprised that in particular some parties who call themselves advocates never intervene on projects involving the independent. I think they sometimes don't know what they vote for, we've seen it before on the vote on the price of the book.

Do you take the floor during the General Meeting?

Mr. Speaker, I have understood that the word has been taken about the form. I am not going to talk about the form of a design.

The Minister said that the exhibition was about the form. That he told me. It is right. You have said that, by the way.

Mr. Speaker, I understood that Mrs. Pieters absolutely wanted to ask the word about the form. She brought a story. She said that she didn’t have the texts and that the landmeters had fun watching. I have not heard any substantive argument. I cannot say anything about the form of a design. This is a bit unusual. I have taken note of the dissatisfaction of the respectable colleague. I keep it there.