Projet de loi modifiant l'arrêté royal n° 72 du 10 novembre 1967 relatif à la pension de retraite et de survie des travailleurs indépendants en ce qui concerne la suspension et le recouvrement du droit à la pension de survie.
General information ¶
- Authors
- MR Daniel Bacquelaine, Pierrette Cahay-André, Olivier Chastel, Jean-Luc Crucke
- Submission date
- Sept. 19, 2003
- Official page
- Visit
- Status
- Adopted
- Requirement
- Simple
- Subjects
- survivor's benefit self-employed person
Voting ¶
- Voted to adopt
- CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA MR FN VB
Contact form ¶
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Discussion ¶
April 14, 2005 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)
Full source
Rapporteur Anne Barzin ⚙
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Secretary of State, dear colleagues, this bill aims to amend Decree No. 72 of 10 November 1967, relating to the pension and survival pension of self-employed workers, as regards the suspension and recovery of the right to survival pension.
The Economy Committee examined this bill during its meetings of 4 and 18 November 2003 and 15 March 2005. Daniel Bacquelaine, the lead author of this bill, presented it in a committee.
An amendment, submitted by our colleague Greet van Gool, pursues the same goal as the original proposal, which is to remove the current discrimination between self-employed and employed persons with regard to the provision of survival pension.
Indeed, when a survivor pension is granted, that the occurrence of an event has the effect of removing the right to that pension and that a subsequent change of circumstance gives the right to that pension again, the employees can automatically obtain this reopening of right, while the self-employed must submit a new application. It is, therefore, here to give the same administrative facilities to self-employed persons, while knowing that this bill is not intended to grant them a new right, but to remove a discrimination that remained between them and wage workers.
The amendment submitted by colleague van Gool aims to adapt the terminology of the Dutch version of the proposal and to provide instruments useful for the achievement of the objectives sought, conferring certain powers on the King.
Ms. Pieters asked in a committee about the budgetary consequences of this bill. The representative of the Minister of the Middle Class then replied that this bill would have no budgetary consequences and marked its principle agreement, both with the bill and with the amendment.
by Mr. Paul Tant, chairman of the committee, questioned the respect of the principle of equality between Belgians, asking whether it was not abnormal that the survivor cohabiting does not benefit from a survival pension. Colleagues van Gool, Lalieux, Simonne Creyf, Trees Pieters and myself felt that this was not the objective of the bill and that it gave no new rights to self-employed workers.
Articles 1 and 2, as well as the amendment, were adopted unanimously. The proposal as a whole was then adopted unanimously.
Mr. Speaker, if you allow me, I would like to say a few words regarding the position of the MR group regarding this bill.
President Herman De Croo ⚙
What can I refuse you? Please go on behalf of your group.
Anne Barzin MR ⚙
On behalf of the MR group, I am delighted that this bill, submitted by my colleagues Daniel Bacquelaine, Olivier Chastel and Pierrette Cahay, is now being considered in plenary session. Indeed, it is not normal for self-employed persons to have as many additional administrative formalities to fulfill in order to regain their right to survival pension, whereas there is no difference between the constituent parts of their file and those of the file of the employees. This bill is fully part of the Government Declaration of July 2003, in which the present Government identified, among its main objectives, the reconciliation of the social status of self-employed persons with the social status of self-employed persons and the simplification of administrative procedures.
In addition, this amendment also meets a general recommendation issued in 2000 by the College of Ombudsmen aiming at greater administrative simplification and equal treatment in the procedure for the recovery of the right to survival pension within the pension schemes for self-employed and self-employed.
I would like to thank the members of the Committee on Economic Affairs who unanimously adopted this text in the committee and I hope that the same will happen soon in the plenary session.
Greet Van Gool Vooruit ⚙
Mr. Speaker, colleagues, our group, and ⁇ our party, is in favour of a good social protection for self-employed. Unfortunately, in some areas, this protection is indeed slightly less than that for employees and that for officials. When we talk about good social protection, we must also ensure that existing differences are removed.
Not only are there large differences, such as in terms of pensions, disability and health insurance, but there are also many small differences. If we want to strive for a good social protection for self-employed persons, we must work to eliminate not only those large differences, but also those small, because it is precisely for those differences that it is difficult to explain why the protection is weaker or less.
The Minister of the Middle East knows that I am very concerned about this. I have already mentioned several cases through questions in the committee. Some of those small differences have already been removed.
The proposal also aims to remove some of those differences. It is about survival pensions. If the person concerned subsequently loses the survivor pension, for example because he or she marries again, there is, at the moment of the dissolution of the new marriage, a difference between the system for employees and the system for self-employed persons. The employee scheme automatically reopens the right to survivor pension, while the self-employed must submit a new application. Since the scheme is almost the same, it does seem very logical to eliminate the difference and to include in the self-employed scheme a measure similar to that of the employee scheme. Of course, our group is in favour of this bill.
However, we must also ensure that the bill does not remain a dead letter. Unfortunately, it appears that, although the law exists, the regime applicable to the Riksdienst für Pensionen in the field of employee pensions is not applied in practice. Therefore, I had submitted an amendment to make a number of textual adjustments, as well as to ensure that the bill does not remain dead letter and that it is implemented in practice, especially through the possibilities of modern means of communication, through the computer science, through the data available at the institutions of Social Security and at the Cross Point Bank for Social Security.
The Minister agreed to the amendment. It was also unanimously approved. I would like to thank the Commissioners for this.
I would like to ask the Minister responsible, as well as the State Secretaries Van Quickenborne and Vanvelthoven responsible for informatization and simplification, to ensure that this scheme does not remain dead letter and that the bill is effectively implemented.