Proposition 52K2459

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 6 mai 2009 portant des dispositions diverses en ce qui concerne la poursuite de la promotion de la possession d'un ordinateur.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Roel Deseyn
LE Josy Arens
MR Jacqueline Galant
Open Vld Roland Defreyne, Sofie Staelraeve
PS | SP Éric Thiébaut

Submission date

March 4, 2010

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

computer information society Internet social policy

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

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

Party dissidents ¶

• Renaat Landuyt (Vooruit) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

March 25, 2010 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I will refer to my written report, because the discussion was short. The unanimity was gathered around the project presented by my colleague of the Open VLD who took noteworthy responsibility for it. He will talk about it better than me.

Colleague De Permentier, I thank you for your kind words. The bill was unanimously approved in the committee on March 17. The bill is in line with the national plan to tackle the digital divide, which already dates back to 2005.

In its government agreement, the government has opted for the continuation of its policy to combat the digital divide. One of the three parts of the program on this control is the part “start to surf at home”. We know that in our country, one in three Belgians does not use the internet. Therefore, a plan to tackle the digital divide is ⁇ important. All measures taken by the government in this context deserve our attention and support.

The action “start to surf at home” was extended by the law of 6 May 2009 over a period of one year, from 1 May 2009 to 30 April 2010. We know that the multiplication effect of such action – which was taught by the previous campaign “Internet for everyone” in 2006 – only occurs after six months. The originally intended one-year period, if we do not intervene now, will, however, in practice have to be reduced to five months. You may be wondering how this happens. The law of 6 May was published on 19 May, but the royal decree implementing that law has something to wait.

Furthermore, the Royal Decree of 12 July 2009 was published in the Belgian Staatsblad only after the holiday, on 4 September 2009. In my opinion, it was rightly chosen not to allow the recognition procedure to run during the holidays. Only after the end of the approval procedure could the supply to the stores start. The first computer packages were only in the shops rows in December. If the action were to run until the end of April, the action would therefore, in practice, have actually only lasted five months.

It is important that this action can run over a sales period of a full year, as the figures from the first sales month, namely December 2009, are encouraging. Of the 9,600 packages sold at the time, more than 80% were sold to new customers. This is for people who have not yet had access to the Internet. The proposal aims, as stated in Article 2, to replace the expiration date of the current law, 30 April 2010, by 31 December 2010.

In article three, the bill provides for the extension, for the same period, of the recognitions that are in progress. Thus, the packages that are currently in the store rows, and now only recognized until 30 April, will also be able to continue to sell, until 31 December.

The Government also considered it necessary to suggest, in Article 4, that new hardware and software suppliers may submit a new application for recognition, namely under the conditions set out in the KB of 12 July 2009.

These new applications will be able to be submitted no later than 10 working days after the publication of the law in the Belgian Staatsblad, but will of course also be able to be submitted until 31 December 2010.

In Article 5, the last article of the bill, the dates of entry into force are specified. This is for the case the law would be published after 30 April 2010, which we obviously do not hope. It is important that there is no interruption for citizens in the tax-benefit purchase period.

Articles 2 and 3 concerning the extension of the procurement period and the extension of existing approvals shall enter into force on 30 April 2010. For example, purchases made after 30 April 2010, but for any subsequent publication of the law, will still be entitled to a tax advantage.

Article 4, which deals with the new applications for recognition, shall enter into force on the date of publication of this law in the Belgian Staatsblad.

Finally, I would like to draw the attention of the Minister for a justified comment from one of the commission members, who asks that in the future, such laws should take into account a period necessary for the technical preparation of the law, before the actual action period can start.

Mr. Speaker, in the past we have already been able to exchange thoughts with the Minister on such a project following oral questions. I signed the proposal because it is necessary for more PCs to be injected into society. That is the success factor for more broadband connections, which are the vector of the knowledge economy.

I would like to have some more comments. I think it is a very good thing that the beginning of the school year is included in such an extension. That has always been one of the important objectives, namely to realize family policy in the field of PCs.

Regarding publicity, I would like to remind you of two things. First, it should be explicitly communicated to the citizen what the tax credit means technically and what possibilities it offers. This will ⁇ be an additional incentive.

A second case concerns the unambiguity, for example when for certain packages of Belgacom one must have a Discovery line in order to be able to activate the package in its entirety.

Finally, I would like to point out that the government, as the implementer of this proposal, will have to pay special attention to the increased performance at a lower price, given the logic and legalities inherent in the technological sector.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues for the proposal and the treatment and unanimousness in the committee. I think the comment of the colleague to which Mr Defreyne refers is ⁇ correct. As Mr. Deseyn said, this will indeed include the beginning of the school year within the period. The backwardness we have in the Netherlands, among others, can be overcome with such measures. Today, the index of the ITU has appeared, a technology index, where our country is now doing a little better. Such measures will allow us to become the digital heart of Europe again in the long run. That is the government’s ambition.