Proposition 54K0688

Proposition de loi visant à créer une "allocation-rebond" pour les indépendants en difficultés.

General information ¶

Authors

Ecolo Muriel Gerkens, Georges Gilkinet, Jean-Marc Nollet, Gilles Vanden Burre
Groen Kristof Calvo, Stefaan Van Hecke

Submission date

Dec. 5, 2014

Official page

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Status

Rejected

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

additional benefit bankruptcy company in difficulties self-employed person

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V ∉ Open Vld N-VA MR VB

Voted to reject

Groen Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI PVDA | PTB PP

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Discussion ¶

March 17, 2016 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, in order to draw your attention this late afternoon, I wanted to start by quoting you a number, that of 10,000. Ten miles is the number of bankruptcies our country experienced in 2015 and unfortunately, this annual figure is of terrible stability. He has hardly moved since 2013. Of these 10,000 corporate bankruptcies, 91% concern self-employed, small enterprises with between 0 and 4 employees. Small structures suffer the most from this real plague.

At the sector level, it is mainly trade, small trade, horeca and construction. By extrapolating a little, what I allowed myself to do, we reach 20,000 jobs per year that would be lost due to these bankruptcies, which would give by the end of the legislature, 60,000 jobs lost.

This figure is an interesting parallel as it corresponds to the number of jobs that you, dear colleagues of the government, promised to create through the tax shift: 60,000 job creations, that’s what you promised. Creating jobs is good. Avoiding the disappearance of existing jobs is better.

I think the shortcut is a bit easy. It is not a bill that can prevent the destruction of 60,000 jobs all at once. We must not want to compare a government objective with an unrealistic objective of a bill! I will let you comment on your proposal, I will return to it later, but in any case, this figure of 60,000 jobs has nothing to do here.

This is a constatation. The number of bankruptcies in Belgium is well understood. The average number of employees per bankrupt structure in Belgium is documented. It was not me who invented it. I think we are a little over 60,000, but we are not far from the reality.

I am not yet there in the presentation of our proposal, but in any case, it has the ambition to combat this phenomenon. This is what I wanted to highlight.

In addition, studies show – not studies by Ecolo-Groen but studies available on the website of the Centre for Companies in Difficulty – that in two-thirds of cases, solutions can be found for the self-employed to rebound and regain economic balance through timely, appropriate and professional support. This is the purpose of our proposal for reimbursement.

This proposal pursues a double objective. On the one hand, to establish financial assistance for the self-employed person who faces economic difficulties and, on the other hand, to provide them with the means to rebound through personalized support. In other words, thanks to this proposal, two-thirds of bankruptcies could potentially be avoided. Translated into jobs, this would mean saving about 40,000 jobs by the end of the legislature. For a government whose slogan is “jobs, jobs, jobs”, dear colleagues of the majority, it is incomprehensible that you have rejected this proposal in commission.

First, I would like to point out that the number of bankrupts is declining. It decreased by 6% between 2014 and 2015. Since the beginning of the year, this phenomenon has only intensified. It is one thing.

10,000 a year is 2015. The [...]

Your proposal has also been discussed in the committee. It was rejected. Your proposal may start with a good intention but it should be noted that it is not the role of the INASTI to settle and supervise all this. To each structure, its job. Nor does the federal have any instructions to give to the regional structures that are already in place and that work very well in the three Regions to prevent bankruptcies.

If this proposal has a certain interest, it is in any case unrealisable and unrealisable in terms of its structure, in the sense that INASTI and the regional structures set up have nothing to do with it. It is not their job.

If I understand right, you are hiding behind structures and the institutional Constitution of this country to reject and potentially reject a bill that goes in a positive direction. This is what I thought I understood from your words. I will answer it anyway.

We are not asking the INASTI to resolve everything. We ask independent workers in difficulty to be accompanied by existing structures. This is not the INASTI! It is the CED in Brussels and Wallonia, the Tussenstap in Flanders. Therefore, it is not the INASTI who has to resolve everything. The INASTI is there for, for a maximum of nine months, as described in the proposal, to subsidize with the equivalent of the integration income, or 700 euros per month, so that the independent does not suddenly become impoverished or fall into poverty. This is the role of the INASTI! This is actually controlled by clear parameters that are detailed in the text if the person is really in trouble. It is important to avoid abuses.

Also, let us not hide behind structures to not support the proposal on the bottom! I wish we could have a discussion on the subject. If you would like another body to do so, it was welcome to submit amendments. There is still time to do it! But on the very principle of the structure, validated with the actors of the sector, especially the CED, the role of INASTI is to subsidize this transitional period, through the contributions of independent workers, allowing them to continue to survive and to verify that they are in difficulty. Therefore, an accompaniment is necessary.

Again, this is a very heavy text and a very long procedure. We know how governments work. The file to be prepared by the independent must return to a first administration and go to a second administration. He will return several months later to the Independent for additional information. He will go back to the administration. This will take a lot of time. However, an independent in difficulty has no time to lose. Measures and decisions must be taken very quickly.

That is why the Minister wanted to be very pragmatic in this matter. I think the one who is best able to help the self-employed in difficulty is the accountant. A new accountant is chosen. It is a potential associate who gives him a different view of his business and it is ⁇ this way that the self-employed in difficulty will be best helped. It can also appeal to the Commercial Court. A concord is possible. He may receive the assistance of consular judges. These are, in general, former independent workers, former merchants, former industrial workers. These are people who have a very good business vision and who can perfectly, in a short time, and very concretely help independent workers in difficulty.

I also think, of course, of Minister Borsus’s Passage Law, which gives a second chance to independent people in trouble.

Again, your proposal is interesting, but it is not applicable by INASTI and is not realistic considering how long it will take, as the independent in difficulty must resolve his problems quickly.

Mr Freeman, I would like to repeat some of your arguments.

If I understand you correctly, you are making an intention trial to the administration that would be too heavy and would lack reactiveness. Your statement is based on very few objective figures, but we will not fight. You do not believe in public administration; I still believe in it. Per ⁇ this is also what makes us different. In this case, the administration plays its role. The CED (Centre for Companies in Difficulty), which is a government-subsidized body, works very well.

We believe in the administration. We are also in favor of administrative simplification. This is written in our program.

This has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the administration, but either.

I agree with your view that the accountants and the people who frame the business world should play a role. This is not in conflict with what we are proposing. One does not prevent the other.

You talk to me about the Commercial Court and the Concordat. The object of our bill proposal is that before arriving before the Commercial Court and declaring themselves bankrupt, independent workers should be accompanied to avoid the deposit of balance sheet. This text is complementary to the Passage Law, which we also voted for. This enables the self-employed to receive an income after the bankruptcy and not to remain in complete deprivation. But again, this happens after the bankruptcy. Here, we are proactively trying to prevent bankruptcy.

In the bottom, I do not hear any real arguments from you and I sincerely regret that you cannot join us on this text. There is no reason that it is so. By the way, we are supporting some of your proposals in a constructive way, as we just did ten minutes ago when it comes to trade. At some point, we have to go beyond political policy.

There is one point that has not yet been addressed: financing. All this will cost money and require the commitment of officials to handle these files. This point should also be addressed in your bill.

For us, this is financed in part by public funds and in part by contributions paid by independent workers. This is detailed in the text.

Beyond the ideological differences that we may have on many topics, it would have been interesting that we could find ourselves on this text. All sectors will tell you, there is an alarm ring about the number of bankruptcies in this country. There were 10,736 in 2014 and 9,800 in 2015.

I address the colleagues of the majority who rejected the text in committee, in particular the colleagues of MR. You want to be the party of entrepreneurs and I don’t understand how you can reject a measure that attacks the high number of bankruptcies. I don’t understand how you can send the small self-employed to the station when, too often, you respond present to the big multinationals and the diamond industry. I do not understand and I ask you to review your position and support this text.

I do not understand that Mr. Vanden Burre did not understand because we were very clear in our explanations!

There is nothing at the bottom.