Proposition 54K2711

Projet de loi modifiant diverses dispositions relatives à l'avancement des militaires.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Hendrik Bogaert, Veli Yüksel
MR Richard Miller, Damien Thiéry
N-VA Peter Buysrogge, Karolien Grosemans
Open Vld Dirk Van Mechelen, Tim Vandenput

Submission date

Oct. 18, 2017

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

professional career armed forces military personnel

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

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

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Nov. 9, 2017 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr Veli Yüksel, rapporteur, refers to his written report.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister and Mr. Secretary of State, Colleagues, I meanwhile say good night to you.

What comes ahead here tonight is an amendment to the legislation on forclusion. It may be interesting to tell the members what forclusion exactly means. Military in a higher degree can no longer be promoted in the last years before their retirement. For chief and upper officers, this is a three-year period in which they must be active. If they can no longer be, they will fall into the forclusion. In the case of chief officers, this applies for a period of two years. For reserve soldiers this applies for a period of one year. The forclusion is already old, it dates from 1958.

There are three reasons why we want to remove the forclusion.

The first argument concerns the reason why the measure has been introduced in the past. This is the so-called golden parachute. The military who retired received a pension paid out on the basis of his last payroll. That legislation is now obsolete. Now the pension is calculated on the period of the last years. The argument that someone got a gold parachute, in order to be promoted soon, has completely disappeared.

There are also two other substantive arguments why we want to remove the forclusion. That is, first of all, an argument concerning the individual himself. Now the person concerned is inhibited in his or her potential growth opportunities at the end of his or her career. By abolishing the forclusion, he or she is still eligible for promotion to a higher position during the last years of his or her career.

The second argument relates to the organization. Per ⁇ the person who can no longer be promoted to a position is the most suitable candidate or candidate to occupy that position.

In short, there are enough arguments in our opinion to abolish the forclusion.

We also organized a hearing on this subject with Lieutenant General Jan Hennes, Director HR of Defense, who gave an explanation. He can also fully find himself in the abolition of the forclusion.

I would also like to thank my colleagues in the committee for the good cooperation and unanimous support for the bill. Hopefully we will see that support also translated here tonight at the vote.

I will be very brief.

I would also like to thank my colleagues for allowing this text to be adopted in the committee. It was important for our assembly to act quickly on this bill so that it could take into account, in the upcoming advancement committees that will meet on 5 and 6 December 2017, those military personnel who, close to retirement, would be denied a last chance of being promoted to a higher rank.

As a result of our vote, and the MR will of course support this bill that we have been able to co-sign, the law will come into force on 1 December 2017 and could, therefore, apply immediately. We believe that this legislative correction will allow a number of officers, sub-officials and military personnel to rightly benefit from a final promotion, an attraction that will be a source of additional motivation for them to end their careers in a positive way, of course.

At a time when our National Defense must devote all its energy to recruiting young military personnel and keeping all its living forces within it, measures that go in the direction of an additional attraction for the Department of Defense must be taken. This proposal is part of it. We therefore approve it in the interests of all concerned.

I think this is a very good initiative. This is good for the department itself. One can ask people until the last moment in their careers to continue to commit themselves. For those working in Defense, this also means that they can be promoted until the end of their career, which is motivating and good for job satisfaction. This is also good for Defence itself because with it we have used the people until the end.