Proposition 55K0822

Proposition de résolution demandant le déblocage de l'indexation des montants annuels destinés au Fonds Gaz et Électricité, demandant une révision tant de la hauteur que du mécanisme d'indexation de ces mêmes montants ainsi qu'une révision du mode de financement de ce Fonds.

General information ¶

Authors

PVDA | PTB Greet Daems, Thierry Warmoes

Submission date

Nov. 28, 2019

Official page

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Subjects

natural gas electricity supply aid to disadvantaged groups welfare

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Discussion ¶

March 5, 2020 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I refer to the written report. We have discussed this proposal of resolution in the committee. A hearing was also held. All information on this can be found in the report. This ultimately led to the rejection of the proposal.

Everything began with a study of the Platform for Combating Energy Precarity under the auspices of the King Baudouin Foundation, dated October 2019, pleading for a revaluation of the Gas and Electricity Fund. In 2017, 120,000 households, which could no longer pay their heating or electricity bills, were able to benefit from this fund. Energy is a right. Poverty continues to increase in this country, as does the price of electricity, and CPAS no longer have the means to sufficiently help households pay their bills or buy devices that reduce their energy consumption.

The PTB immediately took responsibility: we took the recommendations from this study and incorporated them into this resolution proposal, which was initially submitted to a committee. We heard all the stakeholders involved: field associations, CPAS, energy sector actors. Everyone was unanimous in saying that the needs are screaming. Everyone said that this resolution resumed the measures needed to remedy this situation.

Everyone welcomed it, but then the government parties and the N-VA voted against our proposal, arguing that it needed additional resources. Indeed, we need an additional 30 million to refinance the CPAS so that they can help these households. However, we learned during these hearings that tens or even hundreds of millions are in sleeping funds. The government does not use that money. These funds were created at a certain time, and the money is there without doing anything about it. And I’m not even talking about the €172 billion that sleep elsewhere, much further away, in tax havens, which is also the result of your government policy.

I find this attitude ⁇ cynical on the part of the right-wing parties because energy precariousness currently exists. This is the result of your policy, the liberalization of the energy sector, which was voted by all of you here. I can only find that you have no heart and no will to correct socially and at a minimum the results of your liberal policy.

However, last Monday at RTBF, we could hear the Minister of Budget who is no longer present among us say: "If we need means in the face of a crisis, we will unleash them." Do you not understand, dear colleagues of government parties, that this is a crisis. These are hundreds of thousands of households who find it difficult to warm up, prepare their meals, light up and have a strict minimum of comfort.

I would like to quote Sabine, a single mom who says this: “I’m always afraid to turn on my heating but I don’t have the choice because I ⁇ ’t want my little girl to get sick. Nowadays everything is expensive. Rental, electricity, everything is only increasing. When we go to the CPAS to ask for help, they are overcrowded and have no time to help us properly.”

Witnesses like this are getting more and more. It is urgent to act. You are not very many on the banks of government parties or on those of the N-VA to hear me. Your vote against our resolution, of course, did not surprise us.

We are indeed here to listen to you, but you were apparently not there in the Finance Committee last week. The Governor of the National Bank was invited. He proposed a full report, which, among other things, says very literally that the increase in purchasing power of the past years has not been seen in decades. You may also read that report.

The purchasing power can then increase on average, but poverty is also increasing continuously and this is also shown by the figures. I have not mentioned you personally.

And now I turn to the left. We were actually surprised to see socialist and ecologist parties abstain, otherwise the resolution would have been approved in a committee. Honestly, I do not understand it. This is a great deal for all the organizations that have worked on this.

They advocate for social causes. Yesterday, in the Economy Committee, you appealed to Minister Muylle to denounce, rightly, the rise in the social tariff for electricity. But you abstain from our proposal for a resolution, with the sole argument that a resolution is superfluous and requires legislative work. Yet, dear members of the Socialist and Socialist parties, you have submitted dozens of resolutions. Resolutions are submitted to committees every week.

Now, as the government is in a period of ordinary affairs, it is just important that we can vote resolutions that give this government a mandate in ordinary affairs to solve people’s social problems. If our resolution had been approved in time, Minister Marghem would not have been able to freeze the Social Fund, as she did last December.

Dear colleagues on the banks of the PS and Ecolo, this is a call to bring you back to reason. First, think of the 400,000 households that are in energy poverty! It is still time to rally and vote against the rejection of this resolution. There are many local officials in your ranks. Don’t come after complaining that your CPAS do not have the means to meet people’s social needs.

I will also say it in Dutch, to the attention of the colleagues of sp.a, Groen and CD&V, since you also say to be social: please do not let those hundreds of thousands of families down and vote against the rejection of the proposed resolution.

I will be very short. Mr. Loones was, of course, also given the word, because the N-VA was explicitly requested by Mr. Warmoes.

I find the voting behavior of the progressive parties strange, but I will strictly abide by the Rules of Procedure and will return to it in my vote statement later. It can of course.

Madame la présidente, notre collègue nous a interpellés.

Chers collègues, j'avais aussi réservé mon expression pour la déclaration de vote, mais puisque vous nous interpellez, nous allons répondre.

Comprenez bien que nous n'avons aucune leçon à recevoir! Je n'ai pas besoin de rappeler à quel point la précarité énergétique est une priorité pour le Parti Socialiste. Je n'ai pas besoin de rappeler tout le travail que nous avons déjà fait avec nos collègues dans cette espèce de coalition anti-précarité énergétique, et notamment avec Mme Van der Straeten au mois de décembre. Nous sommes déjà dans le concret.

C'est pour cela que nous allons nous abstenir sur votre texte. C'est parce qu'il est obsolète, compte tenu du travail qu'a déjà engagé le Parlement sur ce dossier. Nous sommes déjà dans une autre phase. Nous sommes dans la réalité. Nous sommes dans le concret des mesures. Vous proposez une résolution qui, par rapport au travail déjà engagé, est en retard. C'est ce qui justifiera notre abstention.

Gardez, s'il vous plaît, vos leçons! Nous n'avons aucune leçon à recevoir. Encore une fois, nous sommes dans une autre phase du travail, et nous allons poursuivre dans cette voie.

Ik was van plan om ter zake een stemverklaring af te leggen, maar aangezien u onze partij vernoemt, mijnheer Warmoes, laat ik u toch het volgende opmerken. U weet dat u aan ons een goede partner hebt, als het gaat over dergelijke zaken. Toen het ging over het zorgfonds voor verplegend personeel, hebben wij getoond dat wij daarin volop meegaan.

In deze wetgevende Kamer is het echter onze eerste job om wetten te maken en concrete oplossingen te bieden voor de mensen. Er zijn zoveel zaken waarmee wij principieel akkoord zouden kunnen gaan. Het is heel gemakkelijk om heel veel resoluties te maken. Over de kwestie werden er bovendien al concrete, wetgevende voorstellen gemaakt.

De werkwijze waarbij men een resolutie maakt, waarna de problemen opgelost zouden zijn, vinden wij iets te gemakkelijk. U weet net zoals ik dat dat niet waar is. Daarom zullen wij het voorstel van resolutie niet steunen. Wij zullen ons bij de stemming onthouden.

Wij gaan wel volop mee in de voorstellen die door mevrouw Van der Straeten werden ingediend en die wij ondertussen mee hebben ondertekend, waarin wij concrete oplossingen voor de mensen proberen te vinden. Dat vinden wij veel belangrijker.