Proposition 51K1439

Projet de loi relatif à la simplification administrative.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP MR Open Vld Vooruit Purple Ⅰ

Submission date

Nov. 17, 2004

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

administrative formalities public administration legislation

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld MR

Abstained from voting

CD&V N-VA FN VB

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Discussion ¶

Jan. 20, 2005 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I refer to this in my written report.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, the bill containing the administrative simplification was, as the Secretary of State argued, withdrawn from the Programme Act because it had no budgetary impact. Fortunately, otherwise the bill would have already been approved.

This bill aims to abolish a number of generally obsolete and no longer applied laws. Since the report was not read, I allow myself to summarize what it is about. A law on the wear of white sticks for the blind and yellow sticks for the visually impaired and the authorization to be granted for this by the mayor shall be abolished by this law. A decree of July 1791 "qui règle la couleur des affiches" is also repealed. A third law that is abolished concerns the duel in order to save an infringed honor. A fourth law concerns the optional service book dated to 1841. A fifth law of 1923 relates to the use of post ducks for spying. A committee that was to be established by a law of 1974 to deal with appeals relating to passport issuance but was never established shall be abolished. However, this requires a royal decision to create legal certainty. I will not be too technical. Finally, this bill abolishes the law on the opinion poll committee that was never established. One could say that great work was done, that the government is now working on simplification and that laws are abolished for the first time. People would be less happy.

At the same time, six amendments are submitted from the VLD, by Mr. Tommelein and consortiums, diligently and with a lot of legal confidence, which abolishes five more unnecessary laws. I don't know why it's exactly five, maybe there's another suit. These include a law of 1852 "to insult the heads of foreign state governments", a law of 1936 on the introduction into the country of certain foreign publications (unfaithful publications), a law of 1967 on the exercise of health professions, a law of 1958 on medical-pharmaceutical cumulation, and a law of 1957 on marriages between brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

With an amendment by Mr. Tommelein, the Act of 1906 on the manufacture, import, sale and stockpiling of asem liqueurs is reintroduced.

Absinth or asemic liqueur, says Tommelein’s explanation, is a liqueur prepared on the basis of farm wormherb, anis, fenchel and nut muscat, jeneverbes and hyssop. The drink contains rather risky amounts of copper sulfate, aniline green and lead sugar and can have an alcohol content of up to 85%. This is dangerous for health, he concluded.

As absinthe was never banned in some countries or is no longer banned in a number of other countries, including the Netherlands, the ban should be lifted, according to Mr Tommelein. Nevertheless, the applicant argues that the current circulating absinthe drinks have an alcohol content of 45° to 85° and are actually dangerous to health. However, the proposer of the amendment considers that the high alcohol content is not a reason to maintain the prohibition.

It turns out that absinthe, in addition to thujon and alcohol, contains no other element that can be harmful to health. So it can be reintroduced. What a fantastic reasoning! What an incredible motivation! What a useful bill and what a useful amendment!

However, colleagues, this has not yet been done. On Wednesday, January 12, 2005, the amendment no. 3 of Tommelein cs., which in the meantime has been given a different number, on the abolition of the prohibition on the introduction of some foreign publications — the so-called illicit publications — reintroduced by a new amendment. Therefore, the misleading publications must be able to re-enter. The amendment can no longer be repeated. The illusory publications should be again banned, as sometimes racist publications could intersect.

Colleagues, you should know that at the same time a bill of the colleagues Tommelein, Pinxten and Borginon, VLD Chamber members, is circulating. The proposal is a recent document with the number 1472/001 and aims at the abolition of the King’s authority to prohibit the import or distribution of certain publications. The original Amendment of Tommelein is therefore still circulating here in the House. Maybe it will be amended next week. It may be approved next week. I hope you can still follow.

What are we doing, at a time when the country is sinking into unresolved problems and that a program law approved in all kinds that needs to be implemented now creates a lot of complications?

At a time when we face enormous challenges, including aging and budgets, and Mr. Vinck, we must deal with such clutter, with a secretary of state convincingly claiming that all amendments have been checked in his cabinet and found good. I have only one decision: it is a desperate knockball.

Since the government made the effort to remedy through Mr Tommelein’s amendment, we have, in turn, started looking into those submitted amendments. We have concluded that the Articles 3 to 10 of the Act of 12 April 1958 on the cumulation of health professions are abolished, but that the Articles 2 to 10 must be abolished. Therefore, we have submitted an amendment to abolish Article 2 in addition to Articles 3 to 10. Mr. Speaker, I will now explain why we did this. I will no longer have to do that from my bank. The preservation of Article 2 makes no sense at all if the Articles 3 to 10 are abolished. Article 2 stipulates that any pharmaceutical warehouse held by a doctor must be abolished within 2 years from the publication of the law. Article 4, which has been repealed, provides for exceptions. Since it has been abolished, Article 2 is no longer applicable. The provision should therefore be deleted. The same goes for the prison sentence.

I also submitted a technical amendment.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I am convinced that the majority will not want to follow that logic because it comes from us. The current government workbook is demonstrating once again that hurry and urgency are rarely good and that it is better to bow over serious matters.

Meanwhile, I read this week in the newspaper that Secretary of State Q is hired by VTM for a Kafka show. I would like to propose VTM to provide an introduction to this law and to raise the secretary of state together with colleague Tommelein, but maybe that is too much honor for those two excellences.

Mrs. Pieters, I must thank you very much for calling me excellence. That honour belongs only to my provincial fellow.

Mr. De Crem, we are not competitors. The Secretary of State is from the south of our province and I am from the coast. We perfectly match each other.

Ms. Pieters makes of the above text a caricature. She pretends that the Secretary of State can only submit this bill and nothing for the rest.

I would like to remind you that, as regards the administrative simplification, the Secretary of State concerned has already received international references and that the speed at which certain matters are simplified can be used as an example. Their

Mrs. Peterson, what are we talking about here? In fact, we are talking here about a number of laws that are abolished symbolically. Indeed, I have troubled myself as a member of parliament to look for some laws that I thought were also completely outdated. To give just one example, the law from the 1700s, when Victor Hugo was elected to the Parliament of Paris and was exiled to Brussels by the then Emperor Napoleon. Here from Brussels he continued to send shootings to France, with the emperor getting it so on his hips that he asked the then Belgian parliament to approve a law that could make it impossible for the writer to distribute shootings. I truly think, Mrs. Pieters, that this law is no longer of this time. Insulting foreign heads of state is indeed a law that was never applied, except at the very beginning, to Victor Hugo. It was never applied. We are, of course, parliamentarily inviolable in this country, nothing can be done to us if we make such statements. We have freedom of speech, but the ordinary citizen in the street must not, he must not simply insult a head of state of a foreign country. Well, I found this completely outdated. Their

Can I point out that some of these amendments, which you speak so negatively about now, have been unanimously approved, including by your group? You pretend that this is a piece of work that no one agreed on, which the opposition has heavily hammered on. On the contrary, some of these amendments were unanimously approved in the committee. If you overlook the amendments and look at the original work of the Secretary of State, the bill, then you must indeed find that these are some totally nonsense laws that are no longer of this time. So I can say that we have done symbolically good work here. However, there are a number of laws that can be repealed.

The [...]

No, Mr. Tant, this government is doing much more than this. But if you, as a party that has been in power for most of the past years, think that these laws — whether they serve or not — all must continue to exist and remain in the legislation, then that is good. But I even invite you, and I want to do so together with the opposition, together with members of your party, to still look for other laws that are completely outdated, that have absolutely no meaning anymore and are completely outdated. I invite you to do that. I will be happy to sign that and we are submitting a new bill to abolish some outdated laws.

Mr. De Crem, would you like to sign up for the speaker list?

Mr. Speaker, it is an incredible step forward that after six years of purple-green and purple admit to the government and its representatives that they have made a symbolic act! Six years later, I think it’s a huge revolution. Colleague Tommelein, I would like to remind you that long before you “parliamentarily” awoke, the Christian Democrats issued an alternative state paper in which we wanted to eliminate all excess legislation, starting with decrees of ventôse and pluviôse, nivose. "Helatié" we found no support at that time in the VLD group.

The present bill is intended to abolish obsolete and unused provisions. The law on the double struggle is abolished. Post pigeons no longer have a military role to fulfill. They are all nonsense, which no one can have anything against.

Then the show began! Amendments were submitted and were quickly withdrawn by the applicants. I’m talking about the abolition of the law that prohibits the import and distribution of unfair publications. In the explanation we read that this law is no longer used today and that the law would be contrary to the free movement of goods within the European Union. What was previously labeled as prostitution is now available for sale in every newspaper store. I wonder if every parent is served by the fact that their children are confronted with that literature without any obstacle.

A week later, this argument is referred to the rubbish cart. In the name of public order, the law could sometimes be usefully used to stop the import of extremist or outrageous publications. Our legal system already provides sufficient resources if public order is disturbed. It smells of censorship and restriction of free speech. Moreover, they do not act consistently. The law on the punishment of the insults to the heads of foreign state governments is abolished. According to the explanation, this would be hardly compatible with freedom of expression. Criticism of a person or a policy can be justified. Where is the logic?!

Mr. Secretary of State, instead of making a lot of heisa around this design, which in the distance no longer resembles the original, you could have spent your time more usefully. In your introduction, you yourself emphasize that it is a symbolic draft law and that the essence of the simplification lies elsewhere, including with the companies.

What about online access to the Central Criminal Register, with the abolition of the tax seals when applying for a driver’s license, with the unique company number? That would all be realized in 2004, but is shifted to 2005. The unique data collection of companies was also not realized due to the delayed start of the Crosspoint Bank. How far is the unique starting form? According to UNIZO, starting a case takes an average of three weeks. This is shorter than before, but still far from the promised three days.

I would also like to refer to international recognition. Belgium ranks third in terms of reducing the administrative burden for startups. You think that third place is due to your simplifications. In the relevant article, however, it is referred to the year 2003 when your reforms, let alone their implementation, had not yet been discussed. You have already received a shoulder knock from the World Bank and thus already shared in the prices before you started. This is very strange.

There is still a lot of work in the store. For example, when will the social balance be abolished? What about SABAM and fair remuneration? When will the abolition of the obligation to declare employment of pensioners be carried out? Thousand and one things can still be simplified. Citizens and ⁇ in this country are not waiting for this bill. I call it another distraction to camouflage that you have not yet baked much of it, just like the Kafka index, the barometer to your cabinet, which was also a nice distraction manoeuvre, which neither the citizen nor the business benefit.

In an October newspaper article I read that you gave yourself good points. Together with many others, I wonder why this euphoria. The final draft law leaves much to be desired and neither in terms of the method nor in terms of the content we can find ourselves in it. I also think, for example, of removing the ban on marriages between brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

Our group will abstain from the bill.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Secretary of State, colleagues, I have another brief comment regarding the draft law. We have nothing against administrative simplification. Our group expressly subscribes to the Government’s objectives in this area. We have paid much attention to this in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

I have a question regarding the amendment to the legislation on the white and yellow stick. I have already asked this question in the committee.

It is especially our concern to ensure the involvement of the associations for the blind and the visually impaired in the implementation of this measure. They rightly want to maintain some control to prevent abuse of the yellow or white stick. Their

One of the questions in this regard is also, if one considers to issue more and more electronic identity cards in the future, to somehow be able to have the authorisation, which is now lost, or the certificate attached to the electronic identity card, so that in this way, however, some control is possible.

Mr. President, colleagues, I will today do what I have always done so far and what Mrs. Pieters has explicitly asked me to do, in particular not paying too much attention to the draft law as such and go to the vote. I will not go up the speech floor. Their

I have an important concern about what Mrs. Pieters has said here, Mr. Speaker. It is again that she claims that I make a lot of heisa around this bill. That is a strange concern. I have here added an article from The Standard of 31 May 2000, in which two mandatory representatives of its party, the CVP, notably Ludwig Caluwé and Carl Decaluwé, literally stated: "Unfortunately, the government of administrative simplification has done little or no work." That was in the year 2000. For this purpose, they then make a proposal for the administrative simplification of the abolition of a number of laws that have already been abolished nota bene in the meantime — I think, for example, of a military officer who must seek permission from his hierarchical superior in order to marry — and then they say that this is the essence of the administrative simplification: the abolition of a number of laws. Their

Well, dear colleagues, I am very surprised today that at a time when we abolish some of those old laws and so do what the CVP requires in the year 2000, here on the same banks it is said that this is actually superfluous. I no longer understand the length. I personally think, colleagues, that if one begins the administrative simplification, it will never be good for the opposition, and that what they put here is of course a flagrant reversal of the historical truth. Is this the essence of the administrative simplification?

I find this fantasticly well found by the Secretary of State. I actually have no problems with your bill, I have problems with the amendments and the way to work afterwards. You introduce amendments that you approve here on your bench, with applause from Verhofstadt: see what we do! The next week you need to pull it back and then with high urgency enter another back. Sorry, I have trouble with that. You may abolish all laws that are no longer needed and I will applaud, but this way of working does not appeal, boy.

Is this the essence of simplification? Of course, that is not the essence. I have said this with so many words, also in the introduction and in the discussion we have had in the committee. The administrative simplification of course concerns other matters.

I would like to take another example, something that we have achieved in Parliament with the majority and against which the opposition, in particular the CD&V and the Flemish Interest – which is behind me – has expressly opposed itself. I refer to the effective savings that many tens of thousands of companies can realize in our country with the slimming, simplification and modernization of the obligation to publish the call for the general meeting in the various newspapers. We have had a very interesting discussion on this in the committee, with Mr. Tant and with a number of other colleagues. I have listened carefully to you, Mr. Tant, but you have not been able to convince me because I have received positive messages from Unizo about this. I read the press release then. That is an essential measure that saves many tens of millions of euros for the business, colleagues, but at that moment one is also opposed. In the long run, we no longer know what to do to satisfy the opposition. Honestly, that doesn’t interest us either. With this government, we must satisfy our citizens and our ⁇ with effective simplifications that help people move forward.

Again, this is a symbolic bill and I want to keep it with that symbolism as well. Per ⁇ I would like to mention, Mr. Speaker, that this is the first time that an explicit draft law is adopted. We will soon see what the vote results, if a number of laws are voted.

I also want to thank some colleagues. I thank colleague Van der Maelen, who in 1992, together with his colleague Vande Lanotte, submitted a number of bills that we are now incorporating. I think of Mrs. Van de Casteele. I also think of a number of colleagues from the VLD group, Mr Borginon, and a number of other colleagues who have submitted proposals. I thank them for their contribution to this debate.

I would like to make two further brief remarks on the remarks of Mrs. van Gool on the problem of the white and the yellow blinds, which is indeed an important matter for that group.

Mrs. van Gool, you know that following the amendment of the law — you know that it is not just an abolition, but a replacement of the provision — the various organizations have actually entered into consultation in my cabinet. It is indeed intended to include people in the preparation of the royal decree to prevent the possible abuse of the stick. The same applies to the provision relating to the electronic identity card.

I would like to conclude with the following. I see in the banks that Ms. Pieters has submitted a number of amendments. You know that as Secretary of State I highlight the writer Franz Kafka, but I invite you — I think the colleagues of the opposition are intelligent people — to the amendment n. 9 to read. If you have the amendment no. 9 read, you see what Mrs. Pieters wants to do. It wants to replace Article 11 of the law with the existing Article 11. This is a pure Kafka amendment, because it simply rewrites Article 11 into Article 11. It is a copy of the existing text. You say you want to convert everything into euros. I do not see it. I read "will be replaced as follows" and you replace it again in francs. This is a Kafka amendment. Now you see it, indeed.

Mr. Speaker, I want to fight Kafka and not introduce Kafka. I call for the rejection of these amendments.