Proposition 53K2543

Projet de loi introduisant le Code de droit économique.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP the Di Rupo government

Submission date

Dec. 6, 2012

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

commercial law company law legal code

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

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

Abstained from voting

Groen Ecolo VB

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Discussion ¶

Jan. 24, 2013 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

There is a Civil Code and a Judicial Code. Now also comes the economic law with a large economic code.

That code includes a general legal framework for economic matters that fall primarily within the competence of the federal and European governments.

The Code is actually based on the work of a round table that took over the evaluation and modernization of economic law and published it in a final report in 2003.

It consists of seventeen book parts that are logically structured in the system of some kind of construction legislation. The 17 books are classified in Roman digits from I to XVII and this in combination with Arabic or Western digits that constitute the subdivision of the articles. This method makes it possible to treat the book sections in an arbitrary order over different legislative periods.

The first proposed bill includes book I with the definitions; this is a general framework of concepts. Book II, the General Principles, contains a description of the scope of application with freedom of enterprise as a fundamental right. Book VIII, Quality of Products and Services, contains the material legal principles spread across various legal texts.

In this, however, a number of clues, a number of measurement units, the measurement standards and measurement instruments and the legal units such as the meter. I do not dare to define the meter, for it goes to nine digits after the komma, the kilogram, the second, the ampère, the kelvin, the candela and the unit of dust or the mol. The mol is the unit of dust of a system that contains as many elementary entities as there are atoms in 0.012 kilograms of carbon 12, 12C. We all learn from this code.

These legal measurement units must be used in all authentic acts, in the acts starting from public authorities, in hand acts, writing, invoices and relations between companies.

In the processing of this bill there were presentations of the N-VA, of the Lords Logghe, George, Tuybens and Balcaen and of the Ladies Emmery and Coudyser.

There were amendments, including an amendment by the minister himself, which we welcome, which enters into a proposal by the N-VA to bring the definition standard in line with the European directive in this regard.

The N-VA had a number of other amendments, as well as Ecolo-Groen.

As regards the timing, the present bill includes the book parts I, II and VIII. In the first phase, there will be five sections: the current draft legislation, competition, prices and safety. The second part also includes five book sections: the Cross Point Bank of Enterprises, the Services Law, the Accounting Law, the Consumer Credit, the Mortgage Credit, the Electronic Economy and Law Enforcement. The Minister promised us that this will be submitted to the committee by the end of January.

A third part deals with technical aspects such as consultation, crisis situations and special agreements. These would be submitted at the end of March. Together we will find out at the end of 2013.

If I can, Mr. Speaker, I will go further with the N-VA position. The N-VA welcomes this initiative to summarize coordinated economic laws into an economic code, analogous to other existing legal books. The combination of the rules of economic law makes it possible to obtain a general picture of the great balances that cross the code. It responds to a real need at the European and federal level, but we also ask to keep an eye on the evolution in terms of the distribution of powers with the regions.

We need efficiency gains for the sake of legal certainty for our ⁇ , consumers and government. We call for coordination of all economic provisions. Important laws affecting economic life should also be addressed here. One example is the Law on the Continuity of Enterprises.

For the second book we ask for a modern construction, including a major cleansing in economic law. This should take into account all European and regional standards makers. We also propose to remove what is unnecessary and coordinate towards greater efficiency and transparency regarding procedures and deadlines. We also look forward, Mr. Minister, to the exhaustive table of contents you promised in the committee.

As I said, we are positive about this initiative. We will therefore support the present bill.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to intervene briefly to point out that this exercise, initiated by Minister Vande Lanotte, still deserves sufficient attention. It is important to continue strongly the uniformization in this matter. Moreover, it can really be seen as an example that can also be pursued in other domains, in order to effectively push the uniformization further through it.

In this regard, I have also asked the Minister a question that I have not yet received an answer. What happens to the economic legal elements for which other ministers are the guardianship ministers? I gave two examples. Everything related to corporate governance in our country is currently supervised by the Justice Department, while the Minister of Public Companies of course can also add a lot of elements. It would, of course, be ⁇ positive for legal certainty and for the practical side to include these various domains also in the economic code. I don’t know if there are plans for this; maybe that’s not the first priority right now. I have all understanding of this, of course. However, I would find it appropriate if that uniformization continued.

I think it is very important to emphasize that this is a progressive code. I also thank the rapporteur for quoting this, but ⁇ he did not emphasize it enough. This means that it has not been waited until all chapters have been written and until the various chapters have been inspected by the Council of State and other bodies to start this exercise. It will be further developed during this year and next. In this regard, I think that the fifteenth book on law enforcement will be very interesting, especially because of the uniformization of penalties. While these are now mentioned in various laws, a uniformization is now being implemented. That is very important.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to intervene in particular to emphasize the importance of adapted, modern legislation as well as its uniform application, both for business and consumer protection. This practice can be called truly exemplary in this regard. I thank the Minister for that.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. Tuybens confirmed this: today we opened a large construction site. This new Code of Economic Law will take on topics currently scattered and that it is not easy to find in laws that have succeeded in time. It is also an opportunity to establish new definitions, adapted terminology and general principles. This is also being discussed.

I would of course like to congratulate you on this initiative which is positive for all practitioners and economic operators. I also insist that in so far as we vote by chapter, the symphony will have to go to its end. There can be no unfinished symphony.

I told you in the committee, I will say a few words about what is repealed through this new Code of Economic Law. On March 2 and March 17, 1791, the decree of Allarde was repealed.

The provisions of this decree voted by the French Constituent Assembly have served as a cornerstone of freedom of enterprise and free competition. It is the reference to this story that disappears. This free competition and this freedom to undertake were among the main motives of the French Revolution of 1789.

These provisions were introduced in the Belgian Code in 1795, following the annexation of the Belgian territory to France. This is how the Decree of Allarde still applies to our territory, 220 years later. For many law practitioners, this reference to the revolutionary decree evoked the spirit of the Enlightenment and the rupture our Western societies had experienced from the Old Regime.

This decree is ⁇ somewhat outdated in its formulation: "From 1 April 1791, it shall be free for any person to do such trade or to exercise such profession, art or trade as it finds appropriate." It is also an opportunity, beyond the historical reminder, to insist on the merits of concision which, in the work of law, must be the act of the legislator.

We only know too much, through the texts voted in recent years, that when we lose ourselves in the details, we often find ourselves forced a few years later to put the work on the profession and to vote the laws of refinement.

Repair laws did not exist until twenty years ago. We know that history continues to evolve and that it is quite normal that our organizational modes and rules of law are not just there to act changes, but also to anticipate them.

The decree of Allarde will have done its time – 220 years. Will the same be the case with the decree of the 10th Vendemario of the year VI on the responsibility of the communes, with the imperial decree of 30 December 1809 concerning the factory of churches, or even with the Code Napoleon? We will see. But, at the time when it is stored in the libraries of history, it deserved a few minutes of attention.