On a proposal by the Minister for SMEs, the Self-employed and Middle Classes, Eléonore SIMONET, Parliament approved in plenary session this Thursday the abolition of the Enterprise Counters. Their legal missions will be integrated into the Social Insurance Funds. This is a measure to streamline structures and bring greater transparency for the self-employed. They will now have a single point of contact and an integrated file.
Structures that once made sense do not necessarily still make sense twenty years later. When several institutions support the same entrepreneurs, often under the same roof, one must ask whether the organisation remains the most efficient.
That is why the Minister decided to transfer the legal missions of the Enterprise Counters to the Social Insurance Funds.
Eléonore SIMONET: “This reform starts from a simple question: how can we make life easier for the self-employed and businesses while making the organisation of the administration clearer? This reform clearly aims to simplify existing structures and bring more transparency for the self-employed.”.
Indeed, today a self-employed entrepreneur wishing to start a professional activity must affiliate with a Social Insurance Fund for the social component, and must also contact an Enterprise Counter, which handles, among other things, registration with the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (CBE).
From now on, the self-employed worker will be able to turn to one and the same service provider, namely the Social Insurance Fund, for both obligations.
This results in an integrated file with a single institution, which simplifies follow-up and improves service.
Eléonore SIMONET: “We have a twofold objective. On the one hand, we want to improve services for the self-employed. They will have fewer steps to take and will be able to carry out their administrative obligations in a more integrated way. On the other hand, we also want to use public resources more efficiently. By integrating the missions of the enterprise counters into the social insurance funds, we simplify the administrative organisation and pool expertise, infrastructure and control mechanisms, with all the advantages that entails. Such adjustments also make it possible to achieve efficiency gains. The objective is therefore indeed to reduce, over time, the costs borne by the self-employed themselves.”