Proposition 54K1864

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 26 mai 2002 concernant le droit à l'intégration sociale.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

May 27, 2016

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

subsistence level income welfare social integration

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR

Voted to reject

Groen Ecolo PS | SP PVDA | PTB

Abstained from voting

Vooruit LE DéFI PP VB

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Discussion ¶

July 14, 2016 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, since I am deeply convinced that my highly respected colleagues will want to extend their arguments in the committee here, I refer to the written report.

As I want to go home tonight, I say the same thing as my colleague. Otherwise, we will be there tomorrow morning.

The Assembly thanks you.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, Mr. Minister, let me first of all congratulate you on this draft which makes for us a very important point in the government agreement, in particular a contract tailored to each new subsistence client, with the possibility to include community service as a requirement therein and with attention to supporting the OCMWs in implementing it.

With this, this government takes an important step towards better guidance of all OCMW clients. Until now, such a contract was only applicable to min 25 years old, but that is now changing. Thanks to this expansion, our OCMWs can work even more tailor-made and thus encourage their clients to more self-reliance, work and integration into society, which is definitely a good thing.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us be very clear on one point. After all, there is a chance that you will hear other things or points of view later. Betting on responsibility, betting on getting the best out of every human being, and for everyone aiming to integrate as much as possible into our society, that are all but associal goals. Moreover, it is nothing less than our duty. It is the duty of every OCMW. That is what this design is about.

Even those for whom the assignment to work is an unattainable card, we should not let go. This is why this government works on two lines and, in addition to job creation, it is also committed to a step-by-step increase in living wages, this year alone to about 800 euros per year more for a family head and 600 euros for a single.

The step-by-step increase in living wages towards the European poverty line was prominent in the N-VA electoral program. We are not there today, but despite the budgetary difficult times, we have already taken important steps in that regard and this — I cannot let it be pointed out — in contrast to the previous government. That government was made up of other political parties who would like to announce it, but who did very little about it during the previous legislature, making the gap that must be filled by the current government very large. This aside, although it proves that the current government is committed to a broad framework and does not blindly look at certain fetishes, as some would like to argue.

I will return to the previous draft. Colleagues, just two weeks ago a study found that in Wallonia one in five children grows up in a family without work. In Brussels this ratio is one in four and in Flanders one in fifteen.

These are figures that make you think, or should. Never before has the risk of generational poverty been so great. So it is more than ever the time to be ambitious in the guidance of the OCMWs.

This is what this design is about. The GPMI is, in fact, a contract with the OCMW that allows to guide and follow lifelong workers on a tailored basis, but also responsibilises them for their social and professional reintegration.

The GPMI means that there are conditions linked to the living wage, conditions that bind the OCMW and the client and contain mutual obligations, but above all create a framework for a better future, a framework that leaves no one.

The aim of a guidance is to take steps through clear actions, so that the client gradually becomes more independent and can fully participate in society. It is a contract with rights and duties, but it serves only one purpose: to carefully guide the client towards the best possible integration.

It is certain that this, ⁇ in the initial phase, will require additional effort from the OCMWs. Therefore, it is essential that this Government and the Minister take this into account and that this also be taken into account in the betoelaging.

The federal government will increase the rate of reimbursement of the living wage by 10% for the duration of the GPMI up to a maximum of one year. That is necessary. Every OCMW knows this. It is good that it happens immediately.

It has been said more often, activation is and remains the best lever to break the vicious circle of poverty. Through the expansion of the GPMI we make it possible to actively guide OCMW beneficiaries on a large scale towards independence, self-sufficiency and social integration.

The ultimate goal remains, where possible, the inclusion in the labour market. Mr. Minister, therefore, we congratulate you that in this draft you immediately made the community service possible.

One of the most important conditions for getting a living wage is to demonstrate working willingness. It is therefore good that this government recognizes community service as one of the opportunities for a client to demonstrate his willingness to work.

That who can, must contribute, is not a hollow slogan that no one else serves. It is essential for the survival of a system, which we all support. In addition, it is an instrument that primarily benefits the client himself.

It is not possible for everyone to immediately evolve towards the labour market. Even a social employment can be a step too far for some living wage clients. There are many reasons and situations to think about where community service can be used as a path to integration and employment.

It is therefore important that this community service is focused on future paid employment and should not hinder access to the labour market.

By enabling this, OCMWs are given a new tool to activate and reintegrate their clients into the labour market. The community service is set up on a voluntary basis, which is very clearly stated in the design but it is equally clear that once the commitment has been taken, its respect has become mandatory. This is good, because when agreements are made, they must also be clear. If one is eligible but does not choose to do so, of course the working readiness will have to be demonstrated in other ways.

Some colleagues will undoubtedly immediately try to frame this new instrument as a pest measure. I have heard this in the committee, I gamble, about 176 times. Let me be clear, that is by no means. For those who are still unattainable to social employment, community service can help to strengthen the sense of self-worth, expand social contacts and re-evolve towards the labour market. People in poverty often have a very limited social fabric. Poverty and isolation go, unfortunately, often hand in hand. Activation to work or social activation is creating opportunities, improving social skills and contacts, and that’s what it’s about. That must also be the goal.

It is a story of rights and duties, taking into account as much as possible the competencies and interests of the clients, where customization is absolutely possible. Community tasks, therefore, are not punishments, but a working method to gain experience. It can strengthen the confidence of the person concerned and help against social isolation. This should ⁇ not replace regular work, but for the clients for whom a step into the labour market will always be taken too high, it can still be a permanent tool for us to break through social isolation and to contribute to this society.

Therefore, it is no secret, colleagues, that our group is undoubtedly in favour of the expansion of the GPMI trajectory and we therefore hope that as soon as possible work is made of the KB which determines which minimum conditions and modalities these GPMI contracts must meet.

Of course, it does not stop here. We will have to take care that the GPMI in its new form will not become a mere administrative burden for the services of the OCMW, or worse – and that was the fear that raised me during the committee meeting – will be treated by some OCMWs only as an administrative obligation. That an OCMW can work tailor-made to the client is undoubtedly the strength of an OCMW. One should not confuse work tailored to work in a completely different way. It is important that a client, wherever he lives or at which OCMW he calls, has certainty about what he can expect. Therefore, I also find it important that the modalities of this GPMI are elaborated very clearly and broadly.

Finally, I would like to say something about the reasons of fairness that OCMWs will be able to invoke in order not to establish a GPMI. For very exceptional cases, Mr. Minister, it must indeed be possible, but we must be careful – I will do so in the committee – that it remains exceptional. A GPMI can in principle target all profiles of clients with a living salary. Living wages can be an opportunity for many people. It can also be a tool for systematically engaging with them. Even for those who are not eligible for a job, a GPMI can help in the guidance towards a formation or to strive for the widest possible social integration.

For example, I do not hope that, as is often the case today when it comes to demonstrating working readiness, some OCMWs will consistently invoke fairness reasons, for example in clients with an addiction. I hope that the same kind of reason for fairness will not be invoked before the GPMI, for nothing is more anti-social than simply letting those people go and expecting nothing more from them. Just like for that group, the GPMI can, in my opinion, be a very useful tool to guide them more to a treatment, rather than allowing them to continue with a benefit without much and without much hope. In other words, making no GPMI for a client should become the exception and not the rule.

What is presented here receives the absolute support of our group and makes us hope that the figures of the number of children who grow up in a family without work, with which I started, will improve greatly in the future, so that with this we can break the negative spiral of generational poverty, because that is progress, that is the change we need and that is what I think ‘being social’ means.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, I will not begin to recall a fundamental element in the matter of the right to social inclusion (DIS).

Social Integration Income (RIS) is the last social protection net, the last security net in our country. In our social model, the one that still exists today, this network prevents people from falling into poverty. And if, today, all international organizations and studies establish that Belgium has a relatively large number of poor but little in extreme poverty, it is precisely thanks to this network. And if there has been resistance during the economic crises we are experiencing, especially that of 2008, it is thanks to RIS. It is this fundamental element that must guide our reflection when we want to touch DIS in any way.

I would like to reaffirm it, for the PS group, this right must remain an unconditional right and this in the name of respect for human dignity.

Today, this project touches, in a brutal way, the law of 26 May 2002 on the right to social inclusion – I appreciate that its author is now in the room. This draft makes this fundamental right a highly conditioned right, subject to control. I will come back later on a part of the preparatory work. Even if sanctions existed in the 2002 law, it seems to me that this project goes in the direction of a systematization of sanctions.

The associations for the defense of social allocators, the associations for the fight against poverty, the CPAS federations, whether in Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels, the authors of the study that you yourself, Mr. Minister, commanded to the SPP Social Integration, all have denounced in their sometimes virulent way the reform that you submit to us today. And, I think, they are absolutely right to do so.

In the committee, in the framework of the debates, we also hoped that answers would be given to their questions, to their concerns. It should be emphasized that discussions with the CPAS federations continued in parallel, as we mentioned in the committee. Nevertheless, except for a few small appreciable clarifications, I acknowledge it, but not translated into the law, you have not accepted any opening, no amendment. You will therefore understand that my group cannot change its position in relation to this project.

Mr. Minister, saying that you want to generalize the Individual Social Integration Plan (PIIS), because activation is the best lever to get out of poverty is completely false. No, investing only in activation is not the solution, because you know very well that it will be impossible, or even ineffective, for certain categories of people.

You say that you have taken this reform to allow for more solidarity, accountability and positive activation of beneficiaries. But I continue to think that beyond these beautiful words held in a press conference and then in a commission, what you just want to show is that these people don’t deserve the help we have to give them.

Don’t let me say what I didn’t say. Yes, we are in favor of activation when possible. Yes, we support the use of PIIS, including for those over 25 years, where possible. Because yes, in some cases, this should be extended. From there to generalizing it, to making it mandatory for all beneficiaries, there is a step that we will not take.

I would like to remind you that, in your general policy note that you came to present in the House Public Health Committee, you only talked about expanding the use of PIIS.

In this regard, despite the questions in commission, I still do not know who made you change your mind. I’m not saying “why you changed your mind,” but rather “who made you change your mind.”

As I have already had the opportunity to tell you, this government continues to ignore what poverty really is. It is multidimensional and multifactorial. Its consequences on the person can be of different orders. No, a poor person is not just a person who does not want to work. No, a person who benefits from social inclusion income is not just a person who pleases himself in his situation. Most often, this is a person who cannot work, a person who is under the control of drugs or alcohol, a person who suffers from depression, or who is illiterate, or who is inactive because they have not found employment. Very often, a person in a situation of poverty accumulates these vulnerability factors.

Contractualizing its relationship with the CPAS by conditioning its integration income to a series of obligations in order to allow, as you say, "their activation", is not the solution suitable for many of these people and their true needs. It is our duty to take this into account so that we do not leave anyone on the road. But this is obviously not your ambition, contrary to what you claimed in your government statement.

As a reminder, you announce that you want to decrease by 2020 – there are still four years – as the European Commission’s National Reform Programme forecasted at the time, from 380,000 the number of people facing a risk of poverty or social exclusion. This number, as you know, must be revisited to the rise since then.

The steps you take with your government colleagues, week after week, show well that you don’t make fighting poverty a priority. The only thing you do is make the poor guilty of being poor. In this regard, we are still waiting for the government’s plan to fight poverty.

Your project to extend the PIIS and its method of punishment is in the right line of what I just described, namely, humiliating people who are already in precarious situation. Through it, you simply oppose an indifference to social distress. Knocking at the door of a CPAS is not an easy act. To think and induce the idea in the population that those who do so end up pleasing themselves in this situation is indefensible.

Do you really believe that they can appreciate their situation and that they do not make any effort to get out of it? You know the amounts, but I will allow myself to recall them. Today, the income of social integration is 566,92 euros per month for a cohabitant, 850,39 euros for an isolated person and 1 133,85 euros for a person with a family to his care. Do you really believe that these people, in view of these elements, are pleased in their situation? Recently, efforts have been made to increase social inclusion income, I acknowledge. An increase has been made, an effort has been made, I think, in the continuity of the previous government.

Mr. Massin, I point out that since the month of June, the figures you gave have still changed since we are no longer at 566 euros but at 578 for the cohabitant, at 867 euros for an isolated person and at 1 156 euros for the head of family.

I will let you talk. I keep a few elements for my speech. However, I recall that integration income has increased by 6% in less than a year, which is a plus. When I look at the difference between September 1, 2013 and June 2016, for a cohabitant, we are at more than 400 euros per year, for an isolated person at more than 600 euros per year and for a family head at more than 800 euros per year.

When you give numbers – and you have discussed them in the committee – it is also interesting to give them in their entirety.

I would like to remind Mr. Thiéry that, throughout this discussion, something important is always forgotten. There are steps forward, no one can oppose it, on the contrary. However, it is always forgotten that the poverty line itself also pushes up. If one wants to be honest, this must always be taken into account.

You know, we can talk about a few extra euros but there is still one obvious: the RIS amounts are not high. Living with such amounts, whether you are an isolated person or head of family, is extremely difficult.

Because these amounts are so low and because CPAS beneficiaries live through a last social network, we are in favour that they can benefit from an accompaniment to get out of these situations of precariousness and regain the path to a full social reintegration and professional reintegration. Let’s recognize that having a job and a wage worthy of that name, compared to the amounts we just mentioned, is the best airbag possible to allow individuals to live in dignity.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak on this figure of 6%, which the majority repeats us regularly. In these 6%, there is a 2% increase in the pivot index. This is not an increase in income, but simply an adaptation to the cost of living. We also need to remove 2% index jump, non-adaptation to price changes. It remains 2% of those 6%, with which all VAT increases, indirect taxes, electricity, etc. must be paid. So your 6% becomes 2%, which, in my opinion, eventually becomes below zero.

That’s completely wrong; I don’t even want to take it completely down. It has increased 6%. You say that it has overtaken indexation, which is now not true. The index jump was not taken just before the benefits and there was also an increase of 2%. Since the poverty line is calculated on the median income, it is indeed an increase of 6%.

This is a draft for the GPMI. This government is doing more than expanding the GPMI and I am pleased that you want to put this all back into the picture. Mr. Massin introduced it first. What I especially know is that during the government-Di Rupo, yet your party, Mr. Massin, there was a 0% increase. Now talking about a gap that you yourself have created all those years and now shooting at a government that finally does something about it is very questionable.

Let us primarily talk about the GPMI. You are the OCMW chairman. It makes me very nervous that you, as the OCMW chairman, continue to describe the GPMI as a punishment, while it is just a way to help a client, to guide him tailor-made. As a result, we get the kind of figures that in Wallonia one in five grows up in families without work and that in Flanders it is too much, but only 1 in 15. This is because of such a mentality. I would like you to address this first.

I wondered if I was really asked a question. Everyone has a little comment, and I understand it.

Mr. Thiery, I did not enter this debate. I even acknowledged the fact that the government had made an effort; I said that it was a continuity of what had been done under the previous government, in which you also participated, by the way.

When you get into this debate, that you suggest that you have made enormous efforts and that these people would be unwelcome to come complaining, you forget that you have put the VAT on electricity from 6 to 21% and that these people still need to warm up and enlighten themselves. This 6% increase is largely “swept” by all the indirect tax increases you have made. We also have to look at reality in the face. Let me tell you that your speech is a little sluggish.

We are talking about RIS beneficiaries as part of a PIIS. The fact of imposing them on contractualizing their relationship with the CPAS and conditioning the aid provided to this contractualization is incomprehensible when one knows the realities of the field. I am Chairman of CPAS and I know the realities of the field, especially when you see the unbearable situation of those people who are in poverty.

The fact of signing a contract, that is what it is, normally implies that each of the parties can negotiate the terms. But those people who knock at the doors of the CPAS and who are in the situations I explained to you earlier, with multiple problems, are not able to negotiate the contract that will be imposed on them. This is what the authors of the study that you commissioned to the SPP Social Inclusion said. They believe that there is a lack of balance in the negotiating power between the user and the CPAS and that nothing in the project goes in the direction of re-balancing.

Do you know what this type of contract is called? The Leonin Pact. The Leonin Pact is normally prohibited by the Civil Code. What about a penalty in case of non-compliance? If the contract becomes mandatory, there will be a penalty.

You will ⁇ tell me that it can be modulated, which was not the case before. You allow this modulation but there will be punishment. This can be truly dramatic for these people, and this is not how you get them out of poverty or reintegrate them into society. On the contrary, the only thing you will be able to do is strengthen their dependence by controlling them more and more.

These sanctions will undoubtedly become mandatory in the future. But you know, like me, that there are completely different practices between CPAS. There is no uniformity. It’s not easy but try for a moment to imagine a vulnerable person in poverty, to whom you would withdraw even one month of his integration income. What do you think she will become? What will happen to his family? She will live under the bridges and will resort to begging. Reducing it to this state of utter misery is unacceptable.

One of the authors of the study...

This passage concerning sanctions in today’s text is identical to the one that your political formation approved. Before the law, this chapter on sanctions existed. The sanctions were not heavily imposed. You have approved the text in its current version. Don’t criticize me today.

Mr. Minister, you are extraordinary. You are making pirates. You are magnificent. With your sweet air, you make pirouettes like this.

I tell you that the CPAS will fall arbitrarily in relation to these sanctions. This already exists. This is pointed out in the study. You will further strengthen this possibility with ⁇ harsh penalties. By making PIIS compulsory and not optional and by removing one month of integration income to these people, you will reduce them to the most complete misery.

It is now mandatory for those under 25 years of age. One of the authors of the study sponsored by the SPP Social Integration says in this regard that a possible extension of the PIIS for social activation purposes must be independent or disconnected from the integration income and the possibility of financial sanctions that would be ethically defensive and counterproductive. Even that, you did not do it.

I continue to. The study states that if the PIIS becomes a condition for the granting of the integration income – which will be the case – it risks transforming into an instrument of precariation and exclusion of what constitutes, in our system, the last net of social security. As Ms. Fonck said, people in poverty need not only financial resources, but also listening and accompanying. Your conception of things is very far away. This additional obligation will only accentuate the non-recourse to the right, which is already so important in terms of access to social assistance.

To think that activation is the best lever to fight poverty is a chimera. This is an important lever, but it is not the only one. It is also not the first to have to be used in some cases. Listen to Social Workers! They are here to explain it. They did so through the study.

I would also like to remind you of the preparatory work of the 2002 law; in particular, the explanation of the reasons of Article 11, which indicates that the person’s membership of the individualized project is an essential condition for the success of the approach. Here, there will be no membership since the person will have no choice. Furthermore, when the person is not ready to enter a process of professional insertion, the project will be able – optional – to define the modalities of the person’s social insertion, in order to progressively promote their active participation in society. Resocialization activities are sometimes needed to get people out of their isolation before they can start a process leading to employment. Within the CPAS or in partnership with the associative world, different initiatives can be developed to enable people to regain confidence in their abilities: dialogue groups, collective social activities, etc.

From his own initiative, I insist, the person can also conduct volunteer activities without hindering his insertion process. These are the principles that constitute the very philosophy of PIIS, which cannot, in our sense, be deviated.

Furthermore, in a context where social inequalities are increasing and where the job market is hardly accessible, it is an aberration to believe that those who seek a job can only find it and therefore that those who do not find it deserve to be punished.

As discussed in this statement of reasons, I come to the community service that you insert into your project and which constitutes a very extensive and at least imprecise concept in the definition you give it. We can recognize, and I do, the interest for social aid recipients to participate in certain volunteer activities in terms of socialization, self-confidence, or recognition. It seems to me, however, inconceivable and unacceptable to force them to what I call true “compulsory labour.” The quantitative survey and the qualitative research of the study you ordered, by the way, have highlighted the skepticism, reservations, and even the frank opposition of a majority of respondents and interlocutors, whether CPAS, social workers or the beneficiaries themselves. Respondents and experts insisted on "the imperative of guaranteeing the free and voluntary character of participation in volunteer and volunteer activities, on the need to act in respect of the legal frameworks that mark volunteer, on the one hand, and employment, on the other", including articles 60.

One expert also mentioned the risk of conflicting with international conventions prohibiting forced labour and insisted on the heavy requirements in terms of organization, accompanying and guiding such voluntary activities so that they provide benefits for the social integration of the interested parties.

You will react to me: “Community service will be done, anyway, only on a voluntary basis,” as you stated during our discussions in committee. However, by incorporating it into the PIIS, you give it a completely different character, that of a wage work – since it is based on a contract – unpaid and mandatory, since it becomes so from the moment it is part of the PIIS.

Moreover, you link disposition to work and community service by making it a form in itself of PIIS.

As you specified in the committee, the legal framework you set for this community service would be linked to the legislation on volunteering. This will be included in the preparatory work. But I still don’t understand why you didn’t clearly mention it in the text. You could have specified that this would be included in the royal decree in preparation. Unfortunately, we could not have a discussion about the content of the latter while it would – I think – be intimately linked to the text that is submitted to us today.

That said, you make this community service the flagship element of social integration, relegating to the background other fundamental elements such as employment, training or studies. You therefore make an unacceptable link between the availability for employment of the unemployed and the availability for employment of the RIS beneficiaries while the two situations are not comparable. The mission of the CPAS is entirely different. It consists in enabling everyone to lead a life consistent with human dignity. Not taking this specificity into account proves although we do not have the same company project.

According to you, this community service will participate in the integration of the person in society and will enable its activation in the job market. I advise you, as I have advised your colleague Mr. Peeters, to read the KUL study on compulsory community service, which demonstrates the opposite.

The authors of this study noted, in particular, on the basis of the experience of two other countries, that job seekers included in such a program have, after two years, the same likelihood of finding a job as those who are not part of such a program. Therefore, it seems to me that such a project does not offer a real chance of socio-professional reintegration.

You also talk about personal development of the interested parties. I recognize that in some cases it will be so, but not in others. You create a clear strength ratio between the beneficiary of the social integration income and the CPAS, so that the beneficiary will never dare to oppose the work that is requested from him. Why Why ? Because if they oppose it, they will lose their integration income. When you are fighting for your survival, you are ready to accept anything. And, I repeat, the practices and interpretations of the CPAS differ. This is evidenced by the study you commissioned to the SPP Social Integration. This is the door open to arbitration. I will come back.

In reality, what you do is asking people to exercise, even a few hours a week, as you say, an activity, a job, free of charge, without the possibility of establishing social rights, and simply making them more and more dependent in order to benefit from their integration income.

This is not the solution to offer. The solution to be brought is also in the government statement: it is the creation of jobs, for people who are able to work. You will tell me that you are working there too. Attention, through the establishment of this community service, you banalize the absence of jobs and ⁇ , it seems to me, the inability to create enough of them.

Contrary to what you explain, with the community service, you do not bring beneficiaries of social assistance closer to the job market. The only thing that happens in this matter is to prove that they deserve the situation in which they are, and that they must absolutely deserve the help that must be provided to them. Yes, you have the income of social inclusion, you must earn it by going to work, even without having anything extra, without having a social right or anything. It’s just showing them with the finger again.

Finally, I want to tell you that your project simply challenges the essential work that social workers carry out on a daily basis, and in often very difficult conditions. In each case, in every situation, it is they who try to find the solutions that best correspond to the people who come to knock on the door of the CPAS.

As you know – the study by Abraham Franssen and Kristel Driessen shows – some CPAS did not wait for your project to extend PIIS to other users than beneficiaries under the age of 25.

More than half of the 234 CPAS surveyed already impose individualized social integration plans for people over 25 years. Of course, this is an interesting tool, it is one of the modalities that can be put in place but not the only one. The only difference with your project lies in the fact that PIIS is decided based on the person the social worker is facing. While tomorrow, it will become mandatory without allowing these field people to judge what is most suitable.

To impose this PIIS, as you want it, is to take the risk of making it lose its value in a number of cases, in favor of a certain formalism and therefore to reduce the chances of a better integration of the beneficiary in society. It would be the opposite of the goal you say to pursue. You know that there will be formalism because, given the number of people to meet and the number of documents to establish, there will be no other choice.

As for arbitrariness, if the sanctions remain marginal, you know that some CPAS use them. The study speaks about it. It is to be feared that this is really the door open to arbitrariness, since sanctions will depend purely and simply on the CPAS, while we find ourselves in a regimen of assistance after which there is nothing at all.

Returning this possibility of arbitrariness to the heart of the system is damaging. I would like to clarify, this is a real return back! Before the CPAS, these were public assistance commissions and there was arbitrary. CPAS was created to manage and limit arbitrary by establishing rules. This is also what Professor Franssen says, who believes that by passing from the public assistance fund of the municipality to the CPAS, by consecrating the right to dignity, the right, the right of the people, the right of the poor had been advanced. It is not shameful to speak of a poor man.

Here, with PIIS, discretionary power returns, says Professor Franssen. We are more in the symbolic treatment of the included than in the accompaniment of the excluded. You are completely changing the economy of the law and its philosophy as it is the forty-year anniversary of the law on public centres of social action. We have just made a leap forty years back and we find ourselves again in the public aid boxes.

The Walloon Federation of Social Assistants of CPAS does not say anything else. This is stated in the report: "the reintroduction of a local and subjective appreciation of the right to social integration." This is what we arrive at. In the head of some CPAS, this will be a reality. This is also reflected in your study.

Another element that I think is important to emphasize in the study of the SPP Social Integration and next to which we have completely passed, concerns the establishment of this widespread PIIS. According to the study, this generalization would only be relevant under four conditions:

1 of 1. "The PIIS must be a project adapted to the beneficiary's situation, negotiated with him and adapted to the evolution of his situation."

2 of 2. "It must be implemented in good working conditions by a social worker who masters the useful techniques and has the necessary time."

3 of 3. "It must be articulated around a 360-degree service offer (social participation, therapeutic support, training), provided that the disposition to work is not interpreted only in a perspective of activation and professional insertion, in order to take into account the most vulnerable users."

4 of 4. "It must be integrated into the CPAS procedures and tools so that it represents a lesser administrative burden."

These conditions are not met. They are not included in your project. Nothing is! You do not take into account the work done by your experts or the opinion of your own experts.

We have a project based on criteria that are not realistic, which are not adapted to the realities of the CPAS, and which also seem unrealisable effectively for the majority of them. In addition, when sanctioned persons find themselves in a state of need, the CPAS will be obliged to continue to help them, but without federal intervention, on their own funds. This is what is called a transfer of charges from the federal to the CPAS, while these are already exhausted and do not stop demanding increases in federal intervention.

This financing, which is envisaged in the extension of the PIIS, is a claim of the CPAS to have sufficient funding to ensure a qualitative and tailor-made support of their users. In those over 25 years, integration is more complex and employment efforts are less successful. This must therefore be taken into account.

You have planned a 10% increase in the grant at the conclusion of any new PIIS, but over one year, which can be extended to two years. However, a PIIS can be set up over several years, even if there is a relatively large number of people who come to the CPAS and who thankfully, thanks to the work that has been done, get out of it. But there are also people who come back, because their situation has changed, or has deteriorated again, whatever the reasons, or people who stay there for a certain number of years. On the other hand, all this can be revised depending on the evolution of the beneficiary’s situation.

The three CPAS federations – Flemish, Brussels and Walloon – have told you: the funding is insufficient to allow for quality work adapted to the beneficiaries.

We therefore submitted, and we were not the only ones, an amendment aimed at clearly linking the obligation to conclude the PIIS to the duration of the planned financing. As usual, all submitted amendments, even if they were constructive, were rejected. In addition, you also provide for the retroactivity of the measure, i.e. the conclusion of a PIIS for all RIS beneficiaries for whom the condition for granting the RIS was fulfilled during the six months preceding the entry into force of the law. The CPAS will have twelve months to put these PIIS in place.

I believe that even before taking this measure, an assessment of the burden for this retroactive measure would have been necessary. You know, many CPAS, and I have quoted you non-financial figures, but increasing figures of RIS beneficiaries in Charleroi, have experienced a significant increase in the number of their beneficiaries in recent months. CPAS will find themselves in a ⁇ difficult situation if they want to apply this retroactive measure.

Furthermore, while the federations believed they had an agreement with you, according to which the entry into force would take place on January 1, 2017, you refused to enter this black on white into the legislation.

Even today, Mr. Minister, through this bill, we have the very unpleasant impression that, although saying and affirming the contrary, you have not listened to anyone: neither the field, nor the social workers, nor the CPAS, nor the CPAS associations or the fight against poverty, nor the administration, nor the academics, nor your experts! As usual, this government decides on its own and does not take into account the opinion of anyone. While everyone asked you to take the measure of what poverty represents, this is not what you have done so far with your project. You didn’t listen to the social workers and the CPAS who, until the end, proved constructive, made proposals, tried to get into your logic and tried to improve things.

Nevertheless, they are the best able to understand and evolve the tools and techniques to truly help all those who are in need. Despite each other’s screams, you persist in purely ideological choices, choices that we do not in any way share. Our objectives differ in many ways. We want to continue to make social integration income an unconditional right. We want to make activation effective by enabling people who can access quality and properly paid jobs. We do not punish poverty. We are fighting poverty.

Mr President, thank you very much. Regardless of what I have just heard on this forum, we have also had the opportunity to read a lot in the press lately. I quote a few of them because sometimes we wonder if we are defending the same interests. We have chosen “the path of humiliation and indifference”, “RIS is an unconditional right”, “it is forced labor”, “an instrument of precariation and exclusion”, “a coercitive tool”, and I’m not talking about the flibust to which we have been entitled for several hours in commission.

Mr. Thiery, you accuse me of doing the flibust. I remind you that I am the only one who has proposed to attach a report and to bring its authors so that they can answer our questions. I clarified that if you reject this proposal, which could quickly come into effect, I would have no choice but to comment on the report. If you call this flibust, I consider that your attitude is that of the rejection of democracy.

We have already had this discussion in committee and, indeed, the consultation had already taken place; having understood your willingness to delay the project with further hearings, I found that your proposal was not necessary.

Based on all that has been said, it is necessary to return to the agreement of the government, which, in its chapter dedicated to social protection and the fight against poverty, said this: the federal government will provide local authorities, through an annotation of the regulation, with new means of social and social integration enabling them to organize within the PIIS, a community service for the beneficiaries of the integration income. And I add: the initiative of the beneficiary will be respected as far as possible, with the aim of achieving a gradual social and/or professional reintegration.

In this way, social cohesion is strengthened, opportunities are created and social skills are developed. I sincerely believe, not dislike some, that this goal is achieved with this project, Mr. Minister.

For the government, the individualized program of social inclusion is primarily a comprehensive accompanying project. It is tailor-made and offers a framework of contractual support in which the mutual expectations, agreements and commitments of each party will be noted. It is therefore absolutely not a tool of control or repression. Personally, I consider that it is in this sense that it was conceived and that it must be perceived. It is a way of empowering CPAS beneficiaries, activating them and giving them more autonomy, in short helping them to become actors of their own lives again to no longer have to suffer it. In a way, it is therefore a stepping stone towards a new existence.

Of course, the PIS is a contract. When it comes to contract, there are rights, but there are also duties that belong to both parties: namely, on the one hand, the CPAS who undertakes to help the person, to provide him with the necessary tools or contacts, to accompany him in his steps and, on the other hand, the beneficiary who undertakes to undertake steps to integrate into the society such as seeking work, undertake training, perform an internship and, sometimes even, simply, find a housing. In this, the measure is meant primarily social, because – I like to emphasize what I said in commission – activation constitutes the best lever to break the vicious circle of poverty, even though I have heard something else in this tribune.

The government’s proposal today is not new. As Mr. Massin recently recalled, a first step had been taken in 2002. The author of this initiative was, by the way, present in the hall.

At that time, no one criticized the project by arguing that it was forced labour or an instrument of precariation or exclusion. So far, we have not received any criticism. This program was specifically intended for young people under the age of 25, but it must be noted that it has proven itself. This is why some Dutch-speaking colleagues recalled in the committee that in Flanders, several CPAS had already used PIIS, without being forced to do so and without any additional subsidy. Once again, it was reminded that the program is a powerful tool for both young people and the elderly public, since it was already happening in Flanders.

Therefore, the government’s willingness to extend it to all the beneficiaries of CPAS is justified even more. Why deprive a whole fraction of the population of this individualized program, when the results are conclusive, at least in a part of the country? I would even go as far as to say that if we did not, we could consider this to be discriminatory against people over the age of 25 who also have the right to be helped.

As regards the costs incurred by CPAS, the Government has decided to reserve an additional budget of 10% for the first twelve months of the individualized monitoring, so that CPAS can be financially supported. This supplement may be extended by twelve months if necessary. In total, the estimated supplementary budget for 2016 is 6 million, for 2017, slightly more than 58 million and for 2018, slightly more than 50 million. These amounts are considerable, while knowing – I insist – that CPAS are left with independence from the decision to offer a PIIS to a person or not. Whether you like it or not, this independence of the CPAS must be considered. Therefore, it is not at all an attack on the power of the CPAS, on the contrary, it is a aid that social workers will ⁇ make the best use in the interest of the beneficiaries.

Furthermore, the CPAS, regardless of whether it is located in the North, South or the Centre of the country, will define its own methodology based on the socio-economic profile of the people it meets. It is well known that in some municipalities the needs and concerns are not the same. The CPAS ⁇ ins its independence at this level. It will also be able, on its own initiative, to decide whether a PIIS should be concluded or, on the contrary, whether the beneficiary, for health or other reasons – this has been clearly specified – should be exempted from it. We are talking about total autonomy, which must be emphasized.

On the other hand, once the decision is made to conclude a PIIS, of course, I said it recently, there are rights, but there are also duties. The program includes three evaluations. In order to hold the beneficiary accountable, sanctions can be effectively taken in case of non-compliance. Since we are talking about sanctions, and there was a controversy about it: here too, the autonomy is left to the CPAS to decide on its own the sanction to be applied in case of non-compliance with obligations. Again, autonomy of the CPAS. We have full confidence in the work of social workers, I said.

Finally, an evaluation of the reform is planned within three years. This is also an important element. If the project is not perfect, it can be revised. This will enable a monitoring of the work carried out by the CPAS according to the characteristics of each of them and to verify whether the objectives pursued by the measurement are achieved. A self-assessment of the device itself, and its 589 CPAS is, I think, something that should also be emphasized.

To conclude, dear colleagues, I might also like to recall that at the beginning of 2016, there were 116 146 RIS beneficiaries. This figure has increased since 2013 by 3.4% in 2013, 3.8% in 2014, 8.6% in 2015 and 13.2% in 2016. On the one hand, of course, because of the unemployment reform but, on the other hand, also because of the increasing precariousness and the increase in the number of recognised refugees.

Among these beneficiaries, ⁇ one in two people, exactly 48,1%, resides in the Walloon Region, 28,4 % in Brussels and 23,5 % in Flanders. I also recall the finding that, if refugees are taken specifically into account, 48% of recognised refugees who are eligible for CPAS are still eligible for CPAS after two years. It is too much. Something needs to be done. Of course, one can denounce the fact that 48% of recognised refugees still enter the CPAS after two years. But we must be able to help them, and not leave them on the side of the road. This is what is interesting with the project proposed today: ultimately, it will allow refugees to benefit from support at all levels to reintegrate into social life.

This is precisely the goal pursued by the PIIS reform: everyone, young or not, has the right to realize his life project and to be helped to ⁇ it. I would like to quote a quote from Monica De Coninck. She has also made a number of extremely interesting interventions about her experience in Antwerp. She said, “We must invest in people before anything else.” I sincerely believe that the current project is going in that direction. It is eminently social and it is precisely for this reason that we will support it.

In our country, 21% of the population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Unfortunately, the number increases year after year.

Poverty organisations therefore call for a structural solution, and they are right. Politics should focus on self-saving people. We do this, to the extent possible, through social and, if possible, through professional activation. We do this in all possible ways.

The OCMWs also play an important role in this. They currently accompany no less than 125 000 lifelongers.

Soon we will pass a law here that will give the OCMWs an additional means for guiding people. It will make it possible to provide a tailor-made route for every living wager. Each social worker of an OCMW can, thanks to this instrument, conclude a contract with a living wage entitled. This contract aims to actively accompany the beneficiary with the aim of self-reliance, independence and integration into our society.

In this way, society demonstrates that the survivor of course has the right to a survivor salary and has the right to accompaniment, but that this is not free of obligation. Every person receiving support from the OCMW is encouraged to get out of the negative spiral of poverty and social exclusion. Based on mutual commitments, the client is fully integrated into our society. If possible, for some, it is about guidance to the labour market. For others, it will be about integration in our society, social integration.

Ultimately, our vision, which I think is shared by many, is that we should not only give people fish, but ultimately also learn to fish.

The GPMI existed before. For young people under the age of 25 it was mandatory. With this design, we extend it to all lifelongers.

To be honest, many OCMWs used to apply it, although it was not mandatory, even if it applies to people who were older than 25. They accompanied the people themselves very well. For one it was volunteer work, for the other it was social employment or guidance by the VDAB.

Much of the OCMWs did in practice what we present here today. I want to give them a plum for that. They actually gave the idea to extend this model to all OCMWs, precisely because we believe that every survivor has the right to such an individual path and the right guidance to get away from the survivor’s salary. Some OCMWs have already done this, but not all.

The present draft law ⁇ contains a number of positive elements, I will highlight four.

I would like to limit myself to four positive elements.

First, the stigmatizing labels are removed. In the past, this happened only for min-25-year-olds, as if only min-25-year-olds were to be integrated or were entitled to integration in society. We remove the labels. From now on, everybody will have a track on size. All categories are abolished. The routes shall be accessible to all, regardless of the possible right to a subsistence pay or an equivalent subsistence pay, regardless of whether the person concerned is a recognised refugee, a subsidiary protected person or was born and raised here. Everybody is entitled to a path of social integration and everyone is entitled to the same opportunities, with the corresponding same rights and duties for all.

Second, it is also important that the GPMI contract contains mutual commitments. A contract is always concluded between two parties, in this case between the OCMW and the subscriber. Therefore, it is not a matter that is imposed unilaterally by the OCMW on the subscriber. Together with the client, plans for a better future are made and the work is tailored. In this way, each person can develop and learn a number of things according to their own capabilities, age and family situation. That space for customization is created and that means that the GPMI will look different for each interested party. It can mean that a survivor gets a training and then is accompanied to work, possibly in social employment. For example, for a drug addict, the route may include a withdrawal course and subsequent volunteer work, which may already be more than enough. For some, after volunteering, accompaniment to work can also be followed.

For CD&V, it is of great importance and the primary thing is that it is an effort commitment and not so much a result commitment. It is a commitment of the survivor to contribute and contribute to what is in the plan. He or she does this too. It is not just the result, but it is above all the effort, the commitment that one engages that counts.

Thirdly, it is also important to keep in mind that some people are limited by their vulnerability. We have an eye for that. Therefore, we consider it good that the OCMW, in particular the social worker, will be given the opportunity to deviate in certain cases and not to propose a GPMI or, possibly, to wait with the drafting of a GPMI. It is important that we have confidence in the social workers, that we give the OCMWs sufficient autonomy and that we should not want to impose everything with rules from the federal Parliament or from other parliaments. We must leave sufficient space for the correct assessment at the local level, in the OCMW that can best assess the situation on the spot.

Finally, every person receiving a living wage receives the same treatment. This is also positive. From now on, it no longer matters where you live. Now one may have had the bad luck to live in a certain municipality where there was no tailor-made guidance. From now on, everyone has the right to such a GPMI, no matter where they live in Belgium. That is good. We are based on a positive human image. At CD&V we find it important to leave what people can effectively and not what people can not. If we start from that positive human image, it also means that we want to give people opportunities to develop and take steps towards social or economic integration. Volunteer community service can have a place in it.

We emphasize that in any case community service cannot be compulsory, that it should be discussed with the client, but that it should remain a choice to do or not do community service. If that community service is included in the GPMI, then it is only logical that one is committed to performing it effectively. It can include helping in the kitchen of a rest house, participating in the green service, or doing administrative work at one or another vzw. Each person will be deployed there according to his own abilities and his own talents.

What we also emphasize is that community service should under no circumstances be abused. For us, it is a means to inform people who are still far away from the labour market. However, it should in no way be intended to see it as a means of cheap employment. It should also not be intended to allow people who do not need community service and can be employed immediately, possibly through social employment, to necessarily perform community service for another six months. If that is useful, yes, but for others community service is not necessary or unnecessary and one can immediately transition to full employment or social employment. We want to pay attention to this, including in the evaluation of the law.

We believe that every human being has talents and capabilities. We must give everyone the opportunity to fully develop those talents. In this way, dear colleagues, we work for a society that includes people and does not exclude them.

Mrs Lanjri, I would like to remind you for a moment of an article that I also brought to the committee when we discussed this bill there. This is an article that appeared in The Standard. A ship of your party, Patrick Arnou, acknowledges that in Zedelgem already volunteers do the green maintenance on the cemetery there. Asked how that came from, he replied: “A saving measure? “That’s the case,” the door is now open. Volunteers take jobs. People who previously worked for the green service are apparently already being replaced by volunteers in that municipality.

Mrs Willaert, we can overcome the debate we have held in the committee here, but I think our colleagues are not interested in that. I already said what I meant to say, and I repeated it today: it should not be abused as a form of cheap employment. It is also good that the legislation will come out and we will evaluate it over time.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, the present bill has not received headlines, but it is therefore not less important. The individualized path for social integration, the GPMI, is a difficult name for what in fact is no more, but also no less than giving opportunities to people who each with their background, their life story and their problemology end up in little envyworthy situations where they must turn to the aid to get around and lead a human-worthy existence.

As liberals, we believe that the intention should be to catch up, support these people, as well as to give them the opportunity to stand on their own feet again. Through a tailor-made approach and appropriate guidance, each of them should be given a view to new professional opportunities.

At the same time, we are optimistic without being naive. We realize too well that it is not possible to help everyone on this path or to let everyone flow out. For this very reason, we are pleased that with the bill the GPMI is strengthened and expanded. The GPMI is a contract that lists the mutual rights and obligations. It is an accompanying tool and therefore fits perfectly within the framework I have just outlined.

Today, the GPMI is only mandatory for persons under the age of 25. The bill extends that to all new lifelongers, regardless of their age. This is ⁇ positive.

Another essential element of the bill relates to community service. It is registered as an optional part of the GPMI. There has already been a lot of ink flooded on that community service. By some, the concept is rejected as exploitation or even slavery. However, the system is already being applied in many other countries. It is important to pay close attention to the practical fulfillment of community service. It should involve tasks or tasks that add value to the personal and/or professional development of the person concerned, that do not interfere excessively with the search for employment and that do not replace regular jobs.

As colleague Lanjri has already quoted during the discussion in the Committee on Social Affairs, it may not be intended that people continue to engage in community service.

The goal is not to have cheap workforce. The aim is to provide the stakeholders with a sense of self-worth and work rhythm, as part of the guidance to the labour market. We will fully support this bill.

The aim of an OCMW is to guarantee everyone a dignified life. The OCMW legislation is really well equipped for this.

Two elements must be checked: there is a need and there is work readiness.

Minister Borsus proposes today to introduce the GPMI and community service throughout the OCMWs. On the one hand, Mr. Minister, I would like to thank you for this. On the other hand, I have a few critical comments.

I would like to thank you in particular, because you respect the work of the OCMWs, unlike Ms. Homans. Ms. Van Peel is also very positive about the OCMW as OCMW chairman, but can nevertheless not deny that her party mate Homans in the Flemish government is doing everything to impede the operation of the OCMWs. For me, as a former OCMW chairman, that is a shame. So I do not understand exactly why she remains so positive about the proposal of Minister Borsus.

I have already said it in the committee, human dignity is a general term. In fact, an OCMW council must concrete translate this term every 6 years into existing basic social rights in our society. These basic social rights have been discussed frequently in Parliament, in various committees. We are talking about the basic values of Enlightenment. These are equality and freedom, brotherhood and solidarity. In fact, the OCMWs are mainly for this last value. Therefore, every six years, we must also review what a human life is for the people in our church and for the people who come to call us.

I and I, socialists, have nothing to learn from anyone. Former Minister Vande Lanotte introduced the right to social integration in 2002. He then also created the GPMI as an instrument. Many OCMWs have applied this tool extremely consistently and very creatively. As a former chairman of the OCMW of Antwerp, I acknowledge that my vision is very strongly colored by this position.

For all clarity, the finality is to emancipate people, make people stronger, integrate people, give people opportunities, not unblock people, but stimulate people. That is the finality. I emphasize this so strongly because I will later point out a certain danger.

Mr. Minister, therefore, in itself, we cannot be against a project that stimulates that in reciprocity – I very clearly emphasize that reciprocity – between client and OCMW agreements about how we progress together.

Why do I say “together”? I say that because people, when they get opportunities, can grow individually. People who are strong in their shoes in a society are also very good for the social capital in that society. We all get better from that. No one gets better than beggars in the streets. No one gets better from people who are sick and are not cared for. Therefore, this is an individual but also a general social interest that we must serve.

A lot of OCMWs today work with the GPMI, especially in Flanders. I know the situation in Wallonia and Brussels less well, but ⁇ in Flanders is working on it. In fact, we did not wait for its use to be imposed. What is the strength of the regulation of the OCMWs? That strength is worthy life, seeing if there are needs and willingness to work. For the rest – I’ll go a little short through the curve – an OCMW can develop or use all the tools it considers necessary if they already exist, depending on the context and the profile of the client.

That GPMI is actually only an instrument, not a finality. We must be careful with this in the future. The GPMI is not a finality. It is a tool that needs to be used flexibly in order to enable people to grow.

I do not know if it is a compliment, Minister Borsus, but you must be careful that you do not suffer from the Flemish disease. Do you know what it is? It is from Brussels to decide what exactly needs to be done at the local level. This is the Emperor-Costermentality. If one really has confidence in the local governments, one must say what finality they must realize but that for the rest they can choose their instruments, of course within the existing law and regulation. However, you are now trying to impose tools such as the community service and the GPMI on all local OCMWs.

Why impose ? There are other possibilities. Why didn’t you run a campaign to encourage that on a voluntary basis? Why didn’t you encourage some sort of visitations between the OCMWs of Brussels, Wallonia and Flanders to get together to see what good instruments are? Maybe we can learn from each other.

What is the danger? Several colleagues have already pointed out this. The danger is that the GPMI will be used as a finality or an instrument to exclude, punish, especially people. Such a tool is like a knife. A knife is also an instrument. You can do something very positive or something very bad. This means that one must look closely at the human being and the social image of who uses those instruments.

Second, and I would like to emphasize this point strongly, you say that if OCMWs use that we pay 10 % living wage more. We will intervene financially. I heard some confusion about it today. In Antwerp we have been very active. I started with 14 000 clients and left – for all clarity after two regularization campaigns – with 5 000 to 6 000 clients. There is a big turnover.

What have I learned there? I learned that about 10% of the customers we had could not be directed to the regular labour market. and not. In no way, despite the fact that we sometimes tried it for 5 years. It was not the fault of those people. These people today in our society do not have the basic competencies to operate in the regular labour market and cannot acquire them. There was no employer who wanted to give them a regular job. They are often people with a number of medical problems who are born with relatively low competencies. I will keep the general. They are people who, for some reason, have been very badly injured in the course of their lives and in some way cannot heal from it or crack back straight.

The OCMW of Antwerp – I have not said that often yet for obvious reasons – has decided to give that group 200 to 300 euros per month living salary. and extra. Why Why ? Because one can live from a living wage for a limited period of time. However, one cannot live years of a piece of human dignity of a living wage. So I would have much rather seen that those 10% of resources you now extract for the application of a GPMI would be reserved for that specific group. After all, there is a very great need.

This group requires a lot of tools and guidance. Even for those people, we already had a GPMI and an activation project, but we called that social activation, because life isn’t just about cents. We must give people livelihoods and that is of course cents, but it is also about so many other things, such as coming out, participation, sport and culture. It could also be volunteering and community service. So I ask you to think about it. That means that these resources could be better used.

Third, I am gradually tired of the great changes being carried out while not looking at what instruments are available today and which are being applied very successfully.

There has already been a discussion on the different levels of policy and the possible federalization or federalization of powers. On the one hand, it is now said that people need to be activated, opportunities need to be given and guided, and that is good. However, on the other hand, at the same time, efforts must be made in the field of social economy. I look back to the Flemish level. People who can or can never get into the regular labour market with a slightly more difficult time now no longer have opportunities in the social economy. However, there are plenty of social tasks in our society that need to be included. However, they are abolished or they make it terribly difficult for those involved.

In this context, I also mention Article 60 that, if used properly, it is one of the best means to activate people who receive a living wage into the regular labour market. Of course, not all workers will go to the regular labour market. Are they all flowing there? In Antwerp, we have been successful. In the first phase, of course, it is easier because then you work with the best, the top layer, where you find the people with the most competencies. But the more one penetrates into the middle group, the more effort must be made to get those people into the regular labour market.

Given the flow of migration and the integration of recognised refugees, including many people with skills, we will need to use tools. These instruments exist today, but I only hear that they want to be abolished. What works, one wants to destroy without providing for replacement, but one creates a GPMI in which those instruments must be used. Mr. Minister, I therefore suggest that you and your colleagues at other places also sit down at the table to bring a logical line into the policy.

I dare to go even further. There are many opportunities in the challenges for the future. We see a very strong dualization in low-skilled and high-skilled, a dualization between people with many competencies and people with few competencies. We are facing migration flows, with refugees who need to be integrated. We are faced with an ageing population, a rumbling of the population. Many people go into retirement. Many jobs will be released. Many jobs that need to be worked with hands are not fulfilled, while there are people who actually want to work, but who simply need to be properly supervised.

I advocate this, but I also advocate giving the OCMWs space to develop innovative tools. My great fear about the present draft is that the GPMI in some OCMWs will be considered as an administrative procedure, as more paperwork. In other words, one fills the points, one makes type contracts, while one actually needs to talk to the client personally, especially leaving his dreams. What does he want to realize? What efforts does he want to make for this and how can one help him in doing so?

I hope from the bottom of my heart that this dynamic will be ⁇ ined, but that it will not be the dynamic of reducing the living wage as soon as the person concerned fails to comply with a number of agreements.

I come to the community service. As a former Minister of Labour, I have always said that working is very good and makes people very healthy. Not always, but usually. In our society, work is a primary instrument of integration. I have no problem with community service as long as it does not become torture service or substitute service. There are already a few examples. This was also discussed in Antwerp. We have reached a contingent of permanent contracts there, but we have also reached agreements with the trade unions and the social partners on the number per hundred people that we would employ in all kinds of statutes such as article 60, alternative penalties, and so on. This must be adhered to. Thus one permanently avoids the discussion that they would diminish the work of others.

Finally, organizing community service, depending on the profile, also requires guidance. That will only yield a positive result if enough guidance or resources are invested for accompanyers to guarantee the finality, being a human-worthy life.

In short, we are not against it, but for us it should not be. We believe that local governments are wise enough to know what to do. We, the Flemish Socialists, will therefore abstain.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Colleagues, in the popular language, there is often denigrating talk about the OCMW, about the people who work there and about the people who need to ask for support. But that is completely unfair. I started my political career myself at the OCMW and I am still a member of the OCMW Board and that was a very conscious choice. I know a little about how this happens, like others among us. I know people don’t go there for their pleasure to get money. I know how hard the staff of the OCMW works and with how convinced they try every day again to get people back on the rails.

Never have more people sought a living wage than now. This is not something we can be proud of, although our government sometimes seems to see little trouble in it, as its measures almost systematically hit the weaker in our society extra hard.

Well, that living wage. Since 2002, the award and preservation can be linked to a GPMI, which has been discussed for several hours now. This is an agreement between a social worker and a beneficiary with a number of agreements and commitments. It is a negotiated contract between two parties so that everyone knows exactly what he or she is about and what is being sought. So far, such a GPMI was only mandatory for young people, but now you, Mr. Minister, want to make that contract mandatory for every beneficiary, with a possible link to the community service.

How you shape that extension to all living wage clients and how you have come to it is exemplary for this majority. You ordered a scientific study with an extensive survey of the field of work, you read the recommendations, you cut out a sounding passage here and there, you went further completely beyond the essence of the study and then you made your own sense of it.

After all, the working field was not actually a requesting party for a mandatory GPMI, you enter it anyway. Employees actually ask for a good guidance tool and also for less administrative burden, you increase that burden.

You focus primarily on professional integration and you give social integration a lower status. You allocate additional resources, but you put time pressure on them, and you link a voluntary community service to the GPMI. Even a small child may wonder how voluntary such a community service is, if those who offer it at the same time also decide whether or not one receives a living wage, i.e. an income.

Research from the Netherlands, but also from other countries, shows that compulsory volunteer work increases the distance to the labour market. The result of that voluntary community service is actually the opposite of what the majority thinks. Evaluations of the system of the compensation, as this is called community service in the Netherlands, show that the community service does not increase the competencies or the position of a living wage client and that the system is mainly used there as a deterrent.

It turns out to be almost impossible to find work or to find tasks that do not lead to the displacement of what I truly call volunteering or, worse yet, to the displacement of paid labour. Nevertheless, you introduce that system and set in your design that community service should be focused on a future, paid employment. Since practice already proves that it is not so, I assume that you want to enter it purely from the ideology “for what belongs to what” not because it is useful to the person in question. Allow me to find this ⁇ disturbing.

In addition, it has just been discussed, you play a bizarre one-tweet here with your Flemish colleagues, because in Flanders is currently cut and saved in the sector of the social economy and people after a few years must compulsorily flow into the normal economic circuit. If they are not strong enough for that, then the door to OCMW and the living wage is open and therefore from now on the option of the voluntary community service awaits them. Will you then let volunteers compete with their colleagues in the social economy? As I just pointed out, in my response to Mrs. Lanjri, this perverse logic is already being seen working in some municipalities. To save budget, tasks that actually need to be performed by staff are now done by volunteers. Furthermore, it is even most possible that one should begin to do exactly the same thing within the community service as before, but then for a living wage that is miles below the poverty line and for an accompaniment that at this time is not at all clear.

Mr. Minister, I am convinced that the workplace was open to change and ⁇ even needed it. That field of work made numerous suggestions for this, contained in a scientifically supported report. However, I am afraid that this bill does not bring the anticipated change in the workplace. You follow a few letters and ignore the spirit of the report.

Your bill is contradictory and radiates distrust. The latter are not my words, Mr. Minister, but the words of the authors of the study itself, in an article that appeared recently. They are ⁇ disappointed in your bill and felt very strongly the need to react. I cannot give them any wrong.

The report of those scientists included several proposals to strengthen the GPMI as a supportive and dynamic guidance tool. This requires clear, understandable information and transparency; clarity about rights and duties. In this way, in all tranquility and stability, we can collaborate on a viable future perspective.

This bill has nothing to do with those recommendations, on the contrary. We already see that a GPMI is often signed too quickly because it means extra money, before the client knows that he has signed a binding contract, let the state know the content and also understand.

You say in the design that you want to give the necessary time, but you only give resources after the signing of the GPMI. While it just requires a lot of investment and guidance from the social assistants to come to a well negotiated GPMI, with commitments from the client and the OCMW, that the client also effectively understands what he signs, that is well tailored to the capabilities and needs of the client, that is feasible but ambitious enough, tailored to the client.

In addition, the funds only run for one year. I think the risk is very high that in this area the financing is supplanting the aid logic. The risk is also high that the client perspective is lost from the eye. A contract would normally have to be an arrangement between two equal parties, giving the potentially weaker party additional information, tools and guidance, but above all also sufficient time to sign the contract in equality. Here the time pressure to draw is raised, with all the possible consequences thereof. In addition, the social worker now has to draw up a GPMI for everyone, whereas in the past it could be evaluated more case by case whether it was appropriate.

Mr. Minister, I think the most important question is whether the OCMWs will be able to better guide their clients with this bill, which would benefit society, we all. There are no guarantees for that. We do not see them. We do not see the necessary conditions for the proposed text to be a good bill.

What will come to? There will be more administration. The risk of a unity wreck is increasing, as is the risk that even more vulnerable people than today will be excluded from the very last safety net of our social security at a time when never so many people have to appeal to a living wage as now. It would be less suspicious, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, all the beneficiaries of the CPAS are not profiteers, fraudsters, are not people who complain in precariousness. If I keep these words in the preamble of my speech, it is because some politicians try to present in this way the people who benefit from the CPAS.

I would also like to say clearly and outright that one cannot resign that CPAS beneficiaries remain so for an extended period, or even for a good part of their lives. We cannot resign ourselves to leave these people without the prospect of social reintegration and professional reintegration. To resign themselves to what they extend indefinitely to the CPAS is everything, in my opinion, except to have a social approach.

Those who are over 25 years old cannot be left without intensive support for social and professional reintegration, simply because of their age.

Is it possible to reintegrate all CPAS beneficiaries professionally? Probably not, and even probably not. Indeed, for those most socially and professionally distant from the labour market, there are often other vital priorities prior to occupational integration, whether it is disease, lack of housing, illiteracy or even very serious family difficulties.

Our group is therefore favorable, Mr. Minister, to the general lines of this bill: the extension of PIIS to over 25 years, a responsibility-giving approach, the will for social and professional reintegration, the approach with a contract involving rights and duties, the obligation of PIIS, but leaving the faculty to the CPAS to derogate from this obligation.

Although we are in favor of the general lines of this bill, we wanted to improve a number of points. I have submitted a number of amendments to the committee.

I wanted to convince the majority to drop into the law a series of improvements that you potentially present as being subject to a circular. At the level of CPAS, it is known that the practice is different, as is the approach. Today, each CPAS makes a variable geometry interpretation of some existing provisions for less than 25 years. Therefore, the way in which they will apply the extension of the PIIS to over 25 years will also clearly be subject to a variable geometry interpretation based on CPAS practice and local policy practices.

First of all, I wanted to see flooded into the law the fact that studies or training are really taken into account exactly the same way as a labor contract. This is not clearly stated in the law. Therefore, I repeat, each CPAS will be able to interpret it according to its practices. It should be recalled here that a large majority of CPAS beneficiaries have a level of education, either primary or lower secondary education. Professional training or the resumption of studies are therefore fundamental for them to be able to integrate professionally.

The second element I wanted to see flooded in the law, are the close caregivers. To provide them explicitly in the law, Mr. Minister, would have ensured that, without any ambiguity, the obligation of PIIS does not apply in any way to close caregivers, not according to criteria that provide for discussion but on the contrary to close caregivers as defined in the law passed in 2014.

Therefore, I submitted an amendment which I re-submit here in plenary so that close caregivers within the meaning of the law of May 2014, who help a person in a situation of great dependence, whether it is a seriously ill person, a person with dementia or a seriously disabled person, are not compelled to sign a PIIS.

The third element we wanted to see flooded into the law concerns community service, which is optional. We would have liked that it could take place in ASBLs that are not related to the CPAS or the municipality and different from the CPAS in connection with local authorities.

You will tell me that this can be done! I can testify that on the ground, depending on the local realities, depending on the ruling parties, some will allow this community service to be exercised with the associative sector independent of the local authority, others will not allow it or will only allow it with ASBLs directly dependent on the municipality and its CPAS.

You will understand, Mr. Minister, that these are elements that really question us. You will probably tell me that you agree with me regarding the close assistant. You will probably tell me that he will be able to benefit from this famous equity and that, therefore, the CPAS will not be obliged to impose the PIIS on him. You will probably tell me that studies and training can be considered in the same way as a labor contract and that they will be able to do so in ASBLs independent of the municipal authority. Maybe... but I repeat it clearly, incorporating this into a circular is not enough in our eyes. The sinking into the law, if we agree, is an added value and helps to avoid divergent and different interpretations in the head of the CPAS.

These three amendments are submitted to the plenary session. It is especially important for us to persist in carrying out these aspects of the dossier.

I come to the issue of financing. Financing remains limited. If one wants to prevent this from becoming a mere administrative act, it is necessary that the funding is sufficient in the duration only to make effective social and, moreover, professional reintegration.

Finally, I would like to conclude with a regret. I think it would have been possible to reach an agreement with all the federations of the CPAS. You have seen them recently. You agreed at the meeting on a series of points for which you clearly share the position of the CPAS and for which the CPAS shared your new position, whether on the entry into force, over the duration of the PIIS of one year, thus simultaneous and identical to that of additional financing.

It would have seemed to me that you should have accepted some adjustments and improvements to your bill that did not question the structure and the broad lines of this bill. I really think it would have been a significant added value to have an agreement with the CPAS federations because this comprehensive agreement would have strengthened both your bill and the way PIIS will, tomorrow, be extended to over 25 years.

For all these reasons and despite the fact, I repeat here, that we are in favor of the general lines of your bill, we will abstain.

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, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. I will not do the same exercise as her.

I would like to reiterate some fundamental points. Among them is the right of everyone to have access to a minimum income that allows to live in dignity. This right must remain valid even for those and those who fail, who fail, who sometimes go from failure to failure, even if it may seem weird or curious that someone misses several times work projects, projects of social integration. There are life paths that are like that.

Our responsibility, in a society that wants to be solidary – and I hope we all share this minimum goal – is that these people are entitled to a minimum income.

I insist on this fundamental and unconditional right and would like to restore the link I made in committee with the evolution of practices, techniques, concepts that have emerged in recent times in the fight against poverty. We all agree on the positive effect of the measures that have been taken, which consists of starting with giving a home to someone so that this person, once settled alone or with his family, can devote all his energy to his life project, his social integration, his professional integration. The same goes for this minimum income: if a person does not have the minimum guarantees of being able to feed, accommodate, pay his rent, his electricity, take care of his children, we must not expect that he mobilizes for other things.

The bill you submit to us puts this access to this basic minimum income between parentheses for those people, who are the most vulnerable in our society. This is unacceptable. The Chamber’s legal services, in second reading, suggested that you remove terms such as “following the law is mandatory”, and you agreed. Your first will in this project was to assert that you were going to force, demand, that we were in a society of merit, that we were going to refuse the error.

Nevertheless, the good practice, which already applies now and not only in Flanders, consists in accompanying, developing with the person a life project. It is a journey that is made with her, a construction of stages to effectively lead her to overcome her situation, to dare to face the difficulties of a job search, of an activity search, of a participation in life in society.

Similarly, you say that your community service will be developed on a voluntary basis, agree, but once it has been accepted, it becomes mandatory so that the person can no longer give up on it. There too, it is a deception, it is a way of imposing your will for success necessary to be able to benefit from the fruits of the solidarity of society.

As you have said all those who work with those affected, when they are in difficulty, that they have suffered several failures, that they find themselves facing a social worker knowing that they must show goodwill to maintain their rights, they tend to overestimate their capabilities and engage in projects that do not suit them. They must be allowed to miss and then start again by staying next to them, continuing to accompany them. There is no point in doing musculation against them.

There are now provisions that the CPAS use. They allow to contractualize the relationship of assistance and accompaniment, to give access to fixed-term employment contracts – I think of Article 60 – to resort to volunteer activity. Signs and guidelines delimit these measures. For example, if you do volunteer or volunteer, it is for tasks that are complementary to those that correspond to a job. They cannot be accomplished in any condition and anywhere.

A fuzzy surrounds your community service, even if you claim that the rules and volunteer status will be applied. However, the guarantees will be different, since your goal is that the interested party contributes to activities for its own benefit and for the benefit of the society, the community or the community. So you want a "render" for a "data", the latter being the social integration income.

Several members of the majority argue that in the absence of this tool and mandatory contractualization, people are kept in oblivion and dependence. This is also what is done in Wallonia, where there are more unemployed and people in poverty, as if it depended on the relative and specific policies of the CPAS and access to social integration income; as if there were no other responsibilities elsewhere to work on.

As for the obligation of contractualization, I have already said it in the committee but for me it is fundamental, the approach is not ethically acceptable in a relationship between a social worker and a beneficiary of a aid. We want to make believing that this relationship is developed between two people on an equal basis with each other. A social worker who imposes a contract is necessarily in a power relationship with the beneficiary. Here, it is worse since, at the same time, you leave the autonomy to the CPAS in the ability to identify people who for reasons of health or equity will not be able to develop a PIIS and find a job, but at the same time you say you want to set up a monitoring of the CPAS. Establishing an accompanying work of the CPAS to evaluate with them the techniques, the results obtained, the obstacles encountered and the solutions to be brought, is a type of approach; with a monitoring that compares the results and employment, on the basis of figures, you exert pressure on the CPAS workers and relativize the autonomy of these CPAS.

Another element is missing in your project: interest in this famous company and members of the community and community, who are and should be full partners of the policies you want to lead. In general, if one wants a person who has difficulties to be able to integrate, in the cultural, sports, social, associative or professional environment, it is necessary that the groups, the organizations to which he or she is directed have the capacity to do so.

They need to have the ability to welcome people who are sometimes weird in their functioning, so that sometimes, what happens to them fails. Those actors must be supported. It also takes time, energy, and accept that with them, sometimes it works, sometimes it fails, and that later, with another person, it may work. The right to trial and error must be preserved, for the beneficiary of the income of social inclusion as well as for the members of the society who agree to play the game. And the time spent on social workers must also include this dimension.

Therefore, the additional funding you will provide for CPAS workers to carry out these PIIS must be larger and permanent. It’s not just about working for a year of PIIS with one person. Transversally, in order to be useful to all beneficiaries, these workers must have the opportunity to go to the field and negotiate partnerships.

For this purpose, the financing of CPAS is to be reviewed in a comprehensive and much larger way than what you consider, and in a clearer way, in better coordination with partners, with the employees and managers of CPAS. Of course, this is not done in a closed vase from a cabinet.

In the project, you will establish a hierarchy between the work at the level of the actors of the CPAS, but also at the level of the work of participation and social integration of the beneficiary, between what he will do whether it is in an environment or in a cultural, associative context, and the dimension "work". You say that the primary goal is that the person finds a job. If not, it can be accompanied and it can be considered valid that it is integrated into another context. This is an arbitrary hierarchy which, again, does not take into account the individual path to be taken with each. For some people, ⁇ until the end, the accompaniment will be about something other than work, but that it will allow them to live in society.

Mr. Minister, in a much more global way, some elements are not taken into account in this government and in this Parliament. They relate to the expectations and demands that are fed towards the weakest. They are required to be able to re-integrate into the working environment. If it were possible for everyone, it would have been known for a long time.

I come to your actions on how to stimulate job creation, and those aimed at reducing the impact of social dumping. As we have seen when discussing your transposition of the Public Procurement Directives, you did not dare to go to the end to really end social dumping.

From the moment you agree that it is still possible that the criterion of a public procurement is the lowest price, this means that you will tolerate social distraction and dumping. You are going against the creation of jobs, especially low-skilled jobs. You are therefore going against the policy you want to carry out through the re-employment of beneficiaries of social inclusion income.

The measures taken by this government to combat the destruction of jobs related to companies and economic actors who prefer speculation and use of tax havens rather than investing in job creation are contrary to the policies you want to defend regarding the re-employment of beneficiaries of social integration income. On the other hand, you expect these beneficiaries to succeed in finding a job.

We will vote against this bill. But my conclusions are wider than “for” or “against” an individualised social integration plan. Their content is that your policies address the quality of employment, that they have excluded and continue to exclude the unemployed, they penalize part-time and will penalize the beneficiaries of social integration income. You take more and more and more to the weakest, while you continue to curve the squid before the powerful, and especially before those who prefer to cheat.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, the PTB intervened in this debate, in committee, to explain its firm opposition to this project and, in particular, to the service to the community for the beneficiaries of the integration income. Therefore, I do not wish to re-enter the debate, even though my colleagues have not failed to repeat their arguments long enough.

Finally, I have only one question to ask the Minister or the majority. If you find that community service is an important task for society, why don’t you offer a real job to those interested? Indeed, the best way to reintegrate someone into society is to offer them a real job, otherwise what will this service to the community help? by Nothing!

CPAS and local authorities are facing significant budget cuts. They will therefore entrust more and more tasks to “volunteers” as part of these services to the community.

According to the government, this system will operate on a voluntary basis. Is it true? We will see at the autopsy. In any case, experts from the Haute École Charlemagne and the University of Saint-Louis who conducted a study at the request of the minister said that this measure "can open the door to arbitrariness, to practices in case-by-case of CPAS in relation to their users based in particular on local political choices", as is already the case in some foreign countries.

I will conclude my speech with a political conclusion and a practical conclusion. From a political point of view, this project, like the entire activation policy, shows that said activation is a form of social dumping, but between Belgian residents to exert a downward pressure on all wages. From a practical point of view, Dear colleagues, the PTB will vote red.

Mr. Speaker, I would simply say, on behalf of my party, that we are not against PIIS, but against making it mandatory. Obviously, we will vote against this project.

I’m not going to repeat everything that has been said here, but we think this project will increase precariousness and put people on the streets when they ⁇ don’t deserve it. It is not because one is in a state of precariousness that one is unable to go further in life. These are people who are unemployed and who cannot find a job. Your project will not help them. We will vote against.

I will not repeat what I have already stated in the committee.

It is understood that it is positive for me that in the proposal the living wage is linked to voluntary community service and to an individualized project. I am there, like many of you, convinced that work and employment are the best means of bringing a job seeker out of poverty and isolation.

Nevertheless, I would like to add two other elements to the debate, on which I have now submitted an amendment at the plenary session and which have not yet been addressed.

In the draft law, as I read in the explanation, for elected persons currently receiving subsidiary protection and currently able to resort to the OCMW, it is intended to integrate them into our society in a similar way as the refugees and also to register them, as with the recognized refugees, with the rightholders on the right to social integration.

I do not understand the government’s decision. It is not really consistent with the decisions they have taken to limit the right of residence for recognised refugees and persons with subsidiary protection status over time.

I felt that that decision was taken with the intention of preparing for a possible return to the countries of origin. For those who are intended to return to their country of origin, I wonder why they should be so socially integrated into society. Instead, they should be prepared for a return to their own country.

I therefore do not understand that a government party such as the N-VA, which advocates even a separate status in asylum, thus increases the hope and also increases the effect of sucking.

In the amendment we have submitted, we also opt for a similar treatment of recognised refugees and persons receiving subsidiary protection. However, we do not do so by adding that last category to the law you amend today. We remove that category so that they, like those with subsidiary protection, can go to the OCMWs.

I now come to a second point.

It is about employment and getting to work. I have heard many speakers show that it is very difficult for certain categories to get to work. However, no one will be able to contradict me if I argue that the knowledge of the language of the language area in which the person concerned lives is a very important key to obtaining a fixed relationship and to social integration. Those who have insufficient or insufficient knowledge of the regional language and who invoke the solidarity of that community through the right to social integration, we can expect, however, that they will make an effort to acquire that language knowledge. For this reason, we propose to attach a result commitment.

In the amendment we re-submitted today, we propose a regulation that is largely inspired by the Dutch example, by legislation currently in force in the Netherlands. The idea is to develop a system in which for persons who rely on the right to social integration, a result commitment is linked to acquiring the language of the region. The right to social integration is degressively linked to this language knowledge. For this law, which is in force in the Netherlands, a legislative amendment was adopted in March 2015. The requirement for the mastery of the Dutch language was added to a law, similar to the draft law presented here. Since the beginning of this year, the Dutch law has been in place. That law stipulates that an assistant who does not have sufficient knowledge of the Dutch language needed to get a job – it is even a mere functional knowledge – can initially count on a reduction in the assistance if he does not take the initiative to improve that knowledge. If the assistant persists in anger and the condition persists, he will lose his full assistance over time. That is the idea.

In the Netherlands, the system that reduces the aid by 20% in the first six months, between the six and the twelve months by 40%. After one year, the aid will be completely abolished if the person concerned has not made the necessary efforts to know sufficiently Dutch, precisely to be able to start working on the labour market. In practice, it is unfortunately often necessary to have a stick behind the door, because one will not make the regional language of itself as long as the assistance continues unlimited.

We have broadly incorporated that Dutch scheme in the 3 to 5 amendments I presented today. Those who are convinced that it is necessary, that it is a plus and actually indispensable that one to get a job is to know the regional language of the area where one lives, in contrast to the voting behavior in the committee today will get a review to support these amendments.

With this, all registered and unregistered speakers have been finished and I now give the word to the government.

Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your various statements, questions and comments on the draft law. This is, of course, an important matter for our fellow citizens and especially the most vulnerable among them. In this matter, we have tried to find the golden middle, the balance between help, support, guidance and responsibility.

We talked a lot about instruments. I think this term is correct in this case. The government and myself want, through this text, to equip and help the maximum of our fellow citizens to find or regain the path of autonomy in our society by equipping them with the means to find work – this is very clearly a priority – but also to allow many of them to integrate, to have a full-fledged life in our society.

I have heard certain remarks and questions that seem quite legitimate to me, but also intention trials, slogans, exaggerations, comparisons. I have even heard the debate about public procurement. Allow me not to share this opinion at all.

Then, the activity is not the subject of our present debate, even though it is one of the priorities of our government, which wants to reform, support the activity and enable job creation. The numbers are there: they are important and eloquent.

Now to the administrative simplification and sanctions. I reminded – and this will be included in the royal decree as well as in the circulary – that we wanted to integrate the transmission and management of information through the electronic social report and wanted to organize a real administrative simplification. I do not need any formalities for the CPAS. In contrast, I wish for a genuine qualitative and quantitative follow-up of the work carried out and of its results.

In order to answer precisely regarding the ASBLs, the volunteer service may be exercised outside the strictly municipal sphere or the CPAS but must of course remain in the non-market sphere, in the associative sphere.

Always referring to the volunteer service, I recall and emphasize that it is primarily aimed at beneficiaries. The interpretation of the shevin that was expressed in the media was wrong. It is not for those and those who have talked about creating a category of new articles 60 or 61. It is an instrument to enable people to be on a path where they acquire a number of knowledge, contacts, opportunities or even leverages of integration into society and the community that surrounds them. It has been reminded, this service will be voluntary, but from the moment it is contracted, it becomes, as regards its continuation, mandatory.

I would also like to make a fate to the criticism I have heard. Social workers would therefore massively intend to impose in an unjust, incorrect and in violation of their commitment of social workers, GPMI, PIIS accompanied by voluntary service at the expense of the beneficiaries. I reject this trial of intent that you, Mr. Massin and others, do to social workers. Show me these excesses if you see them! Our inspection services will be there to check these.

Mr. Borsus, please do not betray either my thought or my words. That’s not what I’ve said and I’m starting to get seriously tired of it! I do not accuse you, I do not change your words; please do the same with me or it will go very bad!

To be very precise – I have the habit of trying to be – I heard expressed in the tribune “contract leonin”. In civil law, it is a contract by which one unfairly obliges a party to accept what it would not accept under normal circumstances. I consider that our thousands of social workers will actually offer these PIIS, with their various contents and tools, in the interest of the beneficiaries and not in a approach such as that which has been characterized just recently at the tribune. As regards the content, I hope, of course, that, articulated with the regional competencies on integration paths, they will include tools for training, information, language knowledge, social pre-integration paths, social integration and occupational integration.

I would also like to be clear about the community service ...

Just a moment, Mr. Minister.

In relation to this, let us be correct: I actually spoke of the "Leonin Pact" in so far as a party being in a weak state does not have the possibility to negotiate the terms of the proposed contract. This is what risks to happen because the arbitrary is returned within the framework of the bill that is on the table. This arbitrary already exists, which was highlighted by the authors of the SPP Social Integration study.

For several weeks, a number of CPAS have told me that they already offer a number of PIIS. Many CPAS go further, in the study, indicating that they want PIIS to be offered to a larger number.

I do not read anywhere, in the comments that have been addressed to me, these reproaches of arbitrariness. Arbitrary means therefore that it must be considered that social workers, arbitrarily, would impose elements in view of the relationship that exists between the social worker and the beneficiary. I do not accept this trial that is done to social workers and the CPAS.

Mr. Minister, I have never said or suggested that the arbitrary would exist in the head of the social workers. If you read your study carefully, you will see that it is specified that the arbitrary could come from decisions and instructions of a political nature that would be given to the social workers by the Social Action Council or the permanent office. Read your study!

This is completely dishonest on your part.

In fact, you highlight the fact that making a contract is not making a project or building a work project, a life project, between a social worker and a beneficiary. This is not what is in your bill. Your project clearly contains a contractual obligation. I regret, contracting is not a healthy way of working. The arbitrary and the unequal ratio of force, it is you who create them.

You repeat that through our interventions, we consider that social workers are null, that they will do anything and do not respect the beneficiary. This is not what we tell you. We say that you create working conditions and relationships between the social worker and the beneficiary that will result in normalizing people, to exclusions, and that will make people unable to meet the expectations that will be nourished towards them.

What I hear amazes me.

In the granting of integration income today, Mrs. Gerkens, is there not already a certain number of taxes, a certain number of follow-up? Is the workplace not controlled? Isn’t all of these things already being followed today? Do you consider all this to be abnormal?

I hear the accuracy of Mr. Massin and according to her, it is not the social workers but rather the special committees or the CPAS councils that you accuse. I say in the same way that I do not endorse or share this trial.

I will finish by mentioning several points that I think should be emphasized. As for the texts – and this has been noted – we did not wish to introduce any discrimination whatsoever. The arrangement is addressed to all beneficiaries and, of course, the CPAS has, in a reasoned manner, the possibility to decide on exceptions based on the situation or elements of the situation of the beneficiary.

There is retroactivity, of course, because we wish that this arrangement, positive in the eyes of the majority, mobilizing considerable additional budgets for the CPAS, can be offered to a whole range of recent beneficiaries of the integration income. But the feedback is wider: CPAS can also voluntarily offer PIIS to persons who have obtained, before the six months, an integration income but in this case, in a completely voluntary manner.

Madame Fonck, as regards close caregivers, this element will be expressly included in our circulary. According to its assessment and if appropriate, the CPAS may exempt the assistant close to a PIIS, if necessary.

Finally, I make the link with the community service and the law.

In fact, the draft royal decree explicitly specifies the relationship between community service and the law of 3 July 2005 on the rights of volunteers.

We will be happy to monitor the implementation of the legislation. It seems to me healthy. In addition, the evaluation of this legislation in three years will be an important moment. This is one of the most significant reforms we are given to carry out during this legislature, with regard to CPAS. I would like to thank those who found a number of positive elements. I also listen to the comments of others.

It would be worth looking at social practices. As you said, by the way, a lot of work is already done, as evidenced by the individualized accompaniment to set goals with the interested parties, build step by step a project and even possibly take it otherwise. And thankfully! But why add a dimension that rejects someone by telling them that it does not correspond to what is expected in terms of mobilization, without being able to present them with alternative solutions?

You divert the study, which believes that contractualization is potentially useful with a certain category of people, but it is with those with the most capabilities and with whom the relationship becomes as equal as possible that a PIIS contract turns out to be fruitful. When you find yourself with too weak people, it is no longer a tool of integration. This is what the study tells you and what you do not take into account, keeping only a few elements that arrange you to justify your policies.

The monitoring you talked about is not included in your bill as a real evaluation. Of course, an assessment is necessary, but provided that it is developed with the actors and its method is defined collegially. But this is not what you are preparing, since you defend the idea of a monitoring that will list the good practices that will need, if possible, to generalize to others. Therefore, there will be the “good” and “bad” CPAS. I hope I am wrong and you will change your mind by finally working constructively with the field actors and not simply asking them for their opinion from time to time.

Finally, you will not take me away from the idea that if you put all your policies together, you would see that on the one hand, you will destroy employment and that on the other, you are asking the weakest to find employment. The responsibility, you make it apply to those people and not to the job creators or the political actors you are.