Proposition 54K2289

Projet de loi portant assentiment à la Convention de sécurité sociale entre le Royaume de Belgique et le Royaume du Maroc, faite à Bruxelles le 18 février 2014.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

Feb. 1, 2017

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

Morocco family benefit international agreement pension scheme social security health insurance

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI Open Vld N-VA LDD MR PVDA | PTB PP

Voted to reject

∉ VB

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Discussion ¶

March 9, 2017 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Ms Grovonius, the rapporteur, refers to her written report.

Mr. Speaker, I will be quite brief because the bill under consideration was adopted unanimously in the committee and I dare hope that it will be the same in the plenary session.

First of all, the MR wishes to welcome the fact that this bill is on the agenda and can be adopted in this session because, as you pointed out, Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, it updates a social security convention dating from the 1960s. This update seems even more indispensable when we know the close ties that our respective countries maintain and the important contribution of the Moroccan community to the economy of our country for decades.

The Reform Movement will therefore naturally vote in favour of this text, which aims to maintain the rights of social security acquired in both countries, to ensure equal treatment between Belgian and Moroccan nationals, to avoid double subjection to social security and, finally, to facilitate the transition from one regime to another.

Finally, as the Minister recalled, this convention is of a mixed nature and, when we have voted, we will be the only ones, with COCOM, to have given consent to this important convention for tens of thousands of Belgian and Moroccan citizens.

Therefore, allow me to make a call to my colleagues, whose parties are in the regional and community parliamentary majorities and who have not yet expressed themselves. Take the example we are going to show, so that each of the parliaments concerned can quickly approve, update and dust off this convention dating back more than fifty years!

I thank you.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I will talk about only one article of the treaty, the reason why we cannot approve it. It is the last article of the second chapter, Article 29. In the previous convention, a similar arrangement was laid down in Article 24, § 2.

You have to do it, colleagues. Many of you yesterday made very punitive statements, made harsh statements, on the occasion of the International Women’s Day. Today, the present treaty upholds polygamy. However, polygamy is expressly prohibited by Belgian law. With the agreement, you will continue to ensure that widow pensions from polygamous marriages are still paid out by the service Pensions.

The present agreement shows that you support polygamy permanently. This is an unacceptable violation of our fundamental rights. I am not alone in that. The state secretary of state, Ms. Demir, also thinks so. She has already recorded this in January 2014, in a very extensive column in Knack. But I come back to that so quickly.

Colleagues, polygamy seems to be a far-from-us-being matter. For many women in the world, however, this is a sad reality. Fortunately, this phenomenon is not very common in our country. But apparently the Belgian regulation sometimes compels us to take this into account. In the previous version, Article 24 § 2 of the Social Security Convention between Belgium and Morocco stipulated the following: “The widow pension is eventually equally and definitively distributed among the entitled persons under the conditions stipulated in the personal status of the insured.”

Polygamy can thus be a factor in determining social benefits in our country.

In the new treaty, we read in the explanatory note: “In the old treaty, survival pensions were divided equally among several widows, which was not always fair. In this convention, the surviving pension is distributed among the widows, taking into account the length of the marriage. Therefore, a fairer solution has been given to a factual situation in which we bear the consequences.”

However, that nuance compared to the previous treaty does not change the essence, namely that Belgium continues to take polygamy into account. In the new treaty, the facts are simply blurred. However, polygamy is a criminal offence and a crime against the public order of the family and public morality.

At the beginning of the current legislature, I questioned Secretary of State Francken about these practices. During the previous legislature, he himself has troubled Maggie De Block with similar questions. So I meant that I asked my questions to the appropriate competent authority. Francken, however, opened his umbrella and sent me to the Minister of Pensions.

Meanwhile, he tweeted sharply, as a number of Muslim women protested to get a full-fledged widow pension instead of a split pension. He was like a referee who gives himself a red card but remains on the pitch. It is somewhat machiavellistic to map a situation every time, to then maintain them themselves.

Then I went to the Minister of Pension. In May 2015, I also questioned him on the matter. His response reminded him, in particular, that he did not consider a renegotiation of the treaty opportune. In other words, he did not mind that this violation of our legislation continued.

Today, however, the re-negotiated treaty lies on your banks. Apparently, the question I have asked to all the above-mentioned excellences has not been taken into account.

I return to the 2014 column in Knack of Mrs. Demir, who is currently Secretary of State.

I took that column seriously and I think a lot of voters have done that too. It is not released on April 1, but it dates from early January. I would love to read a piece:

“We can expect the Belgian government to ensure that the treaties it concludes fit into the views on fundamental rights. The aforementioned convention dates back to 1971, when there was still talk about host workers. Today they have become fellow citizens. For this reason alone, it is time to review the provisions of that treaty.

However, this is not the only context change that has occurred. In 1981, Belgium received the first anti-discrimination law, which has since been tightened several times. The law on the equality of men and women of 2007 makes that equality since then no longer a beautifully pursuable goal, but an obligation imposed by law. However, a treaty containing the aforementioned articles remains out of hand, even if it lacks that legislation.

Fortunately, the world did not stand still. There is a growing global consensus that polygamy collides with the principle of equality. Moroccan law allows polygamy, but not polyandria. Marrying a woman with several men is not possible. So the equality between man and woman is explicitly violated. In 1993, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women made recommendations for the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Polygamy is defined as discriminatory. It urges that polygamous marriages be banned worldwide.

That a 1971 treaty does not take into account laws and evolutions in the mind of a later date is logical, but that those treaties are not revised is an influence of evolution in our mind. Through this way, generally accepted principles today are impunely dismissed, even for people in our territory. It is unacceptable that Belgium supports polygamy in any way.

The government must start negotiations with Morocco as soon as possible to remove all provisions that are contrary to our legal principles from that 1971 convention. Moreover, Moroccan society and legislation have also experienced an evolution to the better since then.”

Listen carefully, colleagues, I am still quoting: “I call on the colleagues of all Flemish parties to support my call and to require the government to appoint a pillar and a perch here. We must give a clear signal that we do not want to give this shameful violation of human dignity a thumb-breed space. That we do everything we can to eliminate the adverse consequences of polygamy for women will hopefully not be a point of discussion in Flanders. Even in a multicultural environment, cultural relativism should not lead us to nuance women’s rights. The signal, colleagues, must be clear and clear: the fundamental rights are not in question. There are no compromises about it, never.” end quotation.

Now you have negotiated all that treaty, but to the essence, to the main concern, to the call of the Secretary of State, you are not at all able to meet. All the reasons she cited are correct and justify the non-approval of the treaty and a re-negotiation. Colleagues of the N-VA, I hope that you support the call of Zuhal Demir. We will do so by not approving the treaty.

Since I was questioned on a procedural point, I would like to reassure Mr. Flahaux. Initially, this convention was to be ratified only at the federal level. Since the Sixth State Reform and the communitarianization of family allowances, the treaty has become mixed and must therefore be ratified by the various parliaments. According to the various communicated information, it is on the way to be; so we can be delighted.

I am very pleased with the project that has been proposed. The General Convention on Social Security between Belgium and Morocco was signed in 1968. It was four years after the labour agreement of 1964. We brought workers to our country because we needed them. The least we can do today is to recognize the whole contribution of these workers to the development of our economy, in all regions of the country.

There was a social security agreement, but it was limited. We expanded the text, both for Moroccan workers who came to Belgium and for Belgian workers who went to work in Morocco. For example, a worker who has worked here all his life, who returns to live in his country, can have access to health care in the same way as other workers, since he has contributed to social security, like all other workers.

This is an equality to be respected.

This is a convention that I personally negotiated, you know. This took time. It wasn’t easy and I’m really happy that this government today offers us to accept the treaty and ratify it. Thanks to!

I think it is necessary to recognize when things are done properly.

The government does not ask for the word, because there have actually been only statements of support, except for Ms. Pas, of course.