Proposition 53K1385

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 10 novembre 2006 relative aux heures d'ouverture dans le commerce, l'artisanat et les services en ce qui concerne les dérogations autorisées.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Peter Luykx, Liesbeth Van der Auwera
Open Vld Patrick Dewael
Vooruit Peter Vanvelthoven

Submission date

April 8, 2011

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

distributive trades retail trade supermarket trading hours weekly rest period independent retailer Sunday working

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

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

Voted to reject

∉ VB

Abstained from voting

LDD

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

March 1, 2012 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteur is Mr Uyttersprot.

Mr Uyttersprot is not present due to a medical intervention and refers to his written report.

We have called another member of the government. I ask you to wait to ensure the guard and thus avoid us a problem.

Mrs. Laruelle is on the way.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, the present proposal has already gone a long way, but it has finally arrived in the right stall, in the right place.

In the law of November 2006 was written a regulation for the opening hours and the possible deviations from them. On the basis of laws, entrepreneurs and investors enter into employment; they enter and create employment.

This also applies to the gas stations in our country. Everyone knows the phenomenon of the shops connected to a gas station. In addition to fuel refuelling, one can also make small purchases in a kind of depannageshop.

What was the problem? The law turned out to be unclear. There turned out to be a contradiction, which was reflected in various legal judgments. This made it difficult for entrepreneurs in the field to maintain their investments.

It is therefore a logical consequence that the Parliament as legislature acts correctly. The first initiative was given by VOKA Limburg, which summoned a number of stakeholders around the table and which has ensured that now, with the various colleagues from the committee for the business, a proposal is on the table that creates clarity.

With this proposal, there is no longer legal uncertainty. That is a first point. Second, it should be emphasized that the proposal can rely on the broad consensus of the whole sector. Finally, the proposal does not create more competition for neighboring shops.

Our group will ⁇ support this proposal. My colleagues, I ask you to do the same.

Ms. Van der Auwera, Chairman of the Committee on Business, has the floor.

Mr. Speaker, we can go here today in the plenary session to the vote on this bill. You remember that it was sent back to the commission the last time. We have used that period to organize various consultation moments with all relevant organizations in all kinds of working groups on the dossier, which arises from an uncertainty in the legislation. In the end, we reached the proposed compromise. VOKA, Federauto, UCM, VFP, the neighborhood shops and UNIZO, which coordinated the talks, are the basis of what is on the table here today.

It is intended only to clarify and simplify the conditions of derogation. The conditions apply to shops at gas stations, newspaper stores, traders and video business. The offer of such stores should remain limited to a clear depannage offer. We are pleased that today a solution has been found for a segment where a significant group of our population is employed.

Please note that some shops are exempt from their opening hours. We have been debating this proposal for a long time and, without going into detail, we found it essential to support the text that allows a trade to enter into the criteria for opening hours derogations when the sale of one of the product groups constituting the main business represents at least 50% of the annual turnover.

The issue of cumulation, which posed problems in terms of jurisprudence, is therefore extinguished with the new text, which will be voted soon. From now on, products can no longer be cumulated up to 50%.

Furthermore, the conditions provided by the law in terms of limited assortment and prohibition of advertising posed problems of interpretation and legal uncertainty. These problems were addressed in the proposal submitted today to Parliament.

Following these clear labels, the MR group will support this text.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to intervene on the content, but on the way this bill is submitted to vote. However, it is unusual that this is already the second time in the plenary session.

The last time that proposal was returned to the committee because from the civil society, the organizations, the demand for civilisation was raised.

I think this is a good example of how this Parliament can work. The Parliament is engaged in discussions with civil society and the various relevant organisations in order to work together to find the best solution in which everyone can find themselves.

I therefore expect that these efforts, not only of the Parliament but also of civil society organisations, will be honored today. My group will do so too.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, Mrs. Minister, “Schat, you want a pizza because I still have to refuel” is a summary of what the bill that is now to be voted late in the evening will produce in many Limburg house rooms. I suspect that it is intended that this stage will spread throughout Flanders and why not throughout Belgium.

It all started with four Limburg people’s representatives who submitted the original text. That text was intended to amend the law on the opening hours of commercial cases. In a society that respects the social life, also of entrepreneurs and especially of small entrepreneurs, it is useful and meaningful that opening and closing hours are fixed. An exception may be provided for night shops, provided that they remain limited in number. An exemption may also be provided for a number of other products which, as far as we are concerned, are correctly established by law, such as newspaper stores, video stores, gas stations, ice salons and points of sale of pick-up meals, provided that they are not thrown into a single batch.

To date, the law states that one of the five above-mentioned exceptions is fulfilled if the main activity represents at least fifty percent of the turnover. Furthermore, on the outside of the trade, there may be no reference to the sale of the by-products, nor may there be any advertising for it, and the supply of by-products should be limited. For us this is clear. As regards the main activity, the legally applicable opening and closing hours do not apply. This applies to by-products and by-products.

In Limburg has been working for some time a clever neringdoer who had the luminous idea of selling sandwiches and pizzas at his gas stations. These stations get the nickname “Bruno’s Foodcorner”, referring to the although sympathetic man. That has brought him several strike claims due to the competition and often with success for the latter. In fact, there is not much happening to the judges. The pizza and sandwiches are currently also sold outside the regular opening hours. You can verify this by checking the website. The main activity of this neringdoer is undoubtedly the exploitation of gas stations. The pizza and sandwiches are therefore a side activity of supplying fuel to the consumer.

Only those of bad will can interpret the current legislation as a vague legislation. For me he is very clear. The principle contained in it is clear, and consequently the spirit of the law is also. Per ⁇ an interpretative law could have made it even more explicit that the combination of two subsidiary activities is not permitted, insofar as one wants to let them both simultaneously escape the opening hours imposed by law. It could also have been stated that an exception can be made for only one activity.

This is the spirit of the law, this is the principle: either the gas stations close during the normal opening hours and there are day and night sandwiches and pizza available, or vice versa. This is a clear and solid principle. However, that was not in the sense of the Limburg neringdoer and his influential backbone. I have already told you what a wonderful gain this man is for the sp.a in Limburg. Yes, the blood of the big capital crawls where it cannot go.

In the meantime, he has already managed to eliminate much of the competition, especially the night shops in Genk. Accidentally or not, he sits in the city council. There was a regulation issued stating that night shops should only be open until midnight. It is not a coincidence that this draconian measure is taken in the interests of public order and security, and therefore not to hinder the gas stations of Bruno’s Foodcorner too much. The case is settled in Genk. Today is the turn of Brussels.

I have here the bill of the four Limburgers. The original bill, understand, because in the meantime something has happened with the texts. I ⁇ do not want to remember that.

Initially, there was a lot of protest, especially from entrepreneurs and from organizations that want to defend the interests of especially small entrepreneurs. Therefore, the vote in the plenary session in June 2011 was still suspended. After the formation of the government, some found again the evil courage to – after first pushing the N-VA co-contributor aside – put the bill on the agenda again, though with an amendment.

The original text was still intended to amend the law in such a way that the 50 % rule on turnover applied if not one but several permitted exceptions occurred together resulting in exceeding 50 % of turnover. I will clarify. Those who operated an ice cream salon in a gas station, where videos could also be rented and where one could buy a newspaper or when going out also take a pizza or a sandwich, would therefore enjoy the exception unbrokenly. That is where they wanted to go, that was the original proposal!

That went a lot of entrepreneurs and organizations too far, and therefore was not voted on the bill at the moment. The pressure might be a little too big. The proposal was removed from the plenary session and had to be returned to the committee.

After the recession, colleague Schiltz came up with a new amendment. N-VA was already thickly dumped against its sense, as I said. In the amendment it was stated that within the establishment unit, however, advertising for other products could be made. The restriction on the choice of those by-products was also removed, and the term “sales” was replaced by “annual turnover,” a very important change.

With this, the crushing, crushing and murmuring had really begun. Collega Van der Auwera intervened – she could not be absent in the appeal – and attempted another amendment stating that there were no more restrictions on the reference to the products sold in the outside of the trade shop and that the prohibition on advertising for affiliate activities was also repealed here. Note, the 50% turnover rate was substituted by the magic number – probably economically very relevant – of 60%. Whether it was a game of bird picks or the result of a cow trade, who will say? I do not know, colleagues. In any case, your servant’s comment during the committee meeting that it might be better to install electronic casinos – which would hurt the hospitality industry – made some eyes roll in the eye caskets. You ⁇ ’t have to check those tickets. Now yes, what needs to be for one in this country is apparently saved the other, if one is influential enough.

I am asking myself a few futial questions about how this bill was handled. Why was the State Council not consulted? After all, this is an important matter. Apparently, however, it is not an important matter because the State Council was not consulted, despite the crowd of amendments. Why were many organizations initially opposed and now in favour of the text, without it being substantially amended so far? So I am not impressed by the exchange of letters I have received in recent days from certain organizations, at least not. Colleagues, in my modest opinion, the various interest associations have been abandoned with the boutade that only the Flemish Interest defended the good cause and that one could better keep his hands away from it.

At eleven o’clock, a new amendment was submitted, which eventually came into effect in the preceding text. Be careful now. It was again derived from Mr. Schiltz and contained the following arrangement: the prohibition of external reference to side activities and advertising therefor expires. The 50 % standard of the turnover rate remains. Therefore, it will not be 60 % for the main activity. Then the deus ex machina, the word products that should mention the permitted exceptions is now replaced by – hold hold – “product groups”. This is really the blow to the firepile.

Several committee meetings in a row have been covered with the argument that legal certainty was not served by the current provision, while, as mentioned, however, one must be a very poor text exegete in order to find an ambiguity while now a completely new term is being launched which will have to and can be re-filled by the jurisprudence, in particular: “product groups”. It is a term that does not appear elsewhere in the law.

There is legal uncertainty. What a consistent attitude! Look, the term “annual turnover” that was so important has disappeared again. The word transaction remains. It is not so tight. The result is there. This is the hardly achieved compromise. One deliberately makes the law itself unclear and sells it as unclearness. This is shamelessness. It is as absurd as selling pizza day and night at a gas station.

Let us not be hypocritical: this is not a technical adjustment of the law, hell. As I said at the beginning of my argument, if there had already been an uncertainty in the law, it can only be removed by allowing an exception for one, and only one, activity, especially if it represents at least 50 % of the total turnover. However, it is forgotten that the law for private good was then adopted to counter unrestricted consumption and consumer drive on all sides and to grant the operators of small commercial ⁇ also a social life. Since there is in Limburg one great capitalist of the sp.a, this principle must now deviate.

They have tried to accuse me of wanting to play attorney of the night shops. Nothing is less true. I am not a virulent opponent of night shops, but I really think that their activities should be banned. Nevertheless, the operators of these stores deserve a social life and a fair competition, as they also contribute to the socio-economic life. I would like to point out, by the way, that the stores of Bruno’s Foodcorner will also constitute a serious competitive factor compared to sandwich bars and pizzerias in the immediate vicinity, as far as these day activities develop. They are open 24 hours on 24, 7 hours on 7. This is competition for everyone. This is not a social law, but an antisocial law. Then I haven’t talked about the lobby that is at the basis of this.

I dare to say that this law is a private law à la tête du client in which the exception to the rule what must be extended to be one particular company for the sake of.

Yes, we are in the Belgian Parliament. The decay of this state and of this rule of law cannot be better symbolized than by this kind of law on order. This is a collection law for pickup pizzas in gas stations. Only the Flemish Interest stands here to defend the interests of small entrepreneurs, the principles that must be honored, including and ⁇ by the legislator, and their strict application.

Let me decide with a happy note. I hold my heart for the future, Mr. President. You know, in Limburg there is another problem, another problem, especially in Sint-Truiden, on the so-called Chaussée d’Amour. There is also something else to be arranged. Per ⁇ we will find a number of people’s representatives who want to offer their services to solve the problems. We might be able to invite the ladies to this federal barracks here, because when it comes to prostitution, they can learn a little more, I think.

The debate will then be a lot more picky than the pizzas that we can buy in all the pizzeria in Limburg where a gas pump is planted.

Ladies and gentlemen, you are making a bad turn. We are not pleased. We are not impressed. We are not amused. The Flemish Interest will vote against this law with conviction.

Mr. Speaker, I did not intend to intervene, but after listening to the previous speaker, I would simply deny the impression that we could find ourselves in the Limburg Provincial Council. It is not about that! We have been told a lot about lobbying, but in truth, the proposal as it is presented to us will apply to the entire national territory.

The compromise that was found took months and months before it was elaborated. It is an excellent work that has been done! These are commercial practices. I prefer to talk about consumer practices, because it is consumers who evolve! I am convinced that this proposal will put an end to the hypocrisy of banning advertising for related products, while, in order to be viable, certain ⁇ must be able to benefit from better conditions. This should contribute to this.

I am also convinced that the improvement that will be seen after the vote just now will not be the end. We will not put a final point, because these practices of trade and consumption are like life, they evolve and it is in the honour of the legislator to sanction them in terms of law. There is a compromise. Vote for him!

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recall that, in its initial version, this text dates from May 2011 and we remember that our plenary session of last June 30 returned this text to the committee, following a lifting of shields in the sector.

Time has changed the first version. On the occasion of the new discussions, the bill that the Ecolo-Groen group had submitted, based on the almost unanimous opinion of the representative organizations of the sector, could be discussed jointly.

Amendments by the majority, in opposition to the sector’s point of view, were discussed. We have achieved that written consultations are organised on them, which has led to a compromise solution that wins broad membership. This compromise reflects in part the letter and the principle of our bill.

I will not go back on the substance of the matter since it has already been discussed long in the committee and today by other colleagues. I would just like to remind you that it is the non-cumulative thesis that was chosen to determine the main activity of trade.

I think the bill as it was in the end adopted in the committee will bring a more in terms of legal certainty. It is well known that the case-law was not unanimous in this regard and thus put the merchants in difficulty. This text will also allow, in my opinion, the development of healthy and fair competition in the small trade sector for the benefit of the merchants, the employees of these shops, but also the vitality of the trade in the city centers.

I would like to conclude by saying that unlike the first steps aimed at satisfying certain particular interests, the compromise text as proposed today is a text that seeks the general interest of the sector.

We were opposed to the original text. We now have a proposal that makes a 180-degree turn. We will therefore support this proposal.