Before the summer break, the Government approved a series of measures in favour of the self-employed and SME competitiveness. For the Minister for SMEs, Self-Employed Workers and the Middle Classes Eléonore SIMONET, these measures respond to two watchwords: support for competitiveness and administrative simplification.
The following measures were adopted by the Council of Ministers.
Family credit: 5 extra days of leave for a birth
The Government has approved the creation of a right to a family credit of 5 days per child for employees, self-employed workers and civil servants. The family credit is granted to the father or co-parent, with the possibility of transferring it to the mother.
For self-employed workers:
- The potential beneficiaries are either the father and co-parent receiving the paternity and birth allowance for self-employed workers, or the mother receiving maternity insurance for self-employed workers.
- self-employed workers receive a flat-rate allowance
Eléonore SIMONET: "This measure, which also applies to the self-employed, will allow for a better balance between private and professional life."
Annualisation of working time
The Government has decided to annualise working time. In concrete terms, this means that instead of calculating working time week by week, the number of hours is now spread over the entire year: employees work more when it's busy and less when things are quieter. SMEs in particular see this as real breathing space to better adapt their staffing to periods of high demand.
Sustainability reporting: only for the very largest players (the “Omnibus” package)
Through the Green Deal, Europe has adopted a whole series of rules to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Among these rules: the obligation to report on sustainability.
This obligation does not apply directly to SMEs, but they rarely escape it because they are part of the supply chains of large groups that require ESG data.
Thousands of SMEs were thus required to produce hundreds of indicators, unrelated to their actual activity or their resources.
That is why Belgium defended, at European level, the Omnibus package, namely refocusing these rules on the players whose impact truly justifies them. Today we are taking the next step: we are transposing this directive into Belgian law, and we are choosing to go all the way with the simplification it allows.
The Council of Ministers has therefore approved these new rules. From now on, only the very largest players will be affected: companies with more than 1,000 employees generating more than €450 million in annual turnover.
Eléonore SIMONET: "The number of Belgian companies subject to these obligations is falling from around 2,300 to 110, a reduction of almost 95% of companies. This is not about giving up on transparency, but about stopping the imposition on SMEs of constraints designed for multinationals."
Modernisation of the code of ethics for estate agents
AI, digitalisation and consumer protection will now be better regulated.
The Government has approved a royal decree updating the code of ethics of the Professional Institute of Estate Agents (IPI).
Eléonore SIMONET: "Estate agents practise a profession of trust that is evolving rapidly. With this new code of ethics, we are giving them a modern framework, adapted to new technologies and to citizens' expectations."
The new code provides for:
- A first integration of artificial intelligence into the code of ethics
- Better protection of clients' funds
- A code adapted to new realities on the ground (increasing digitalisation of exchanges between estate agents and clients, recent developments in civil law and co-ownership law, etc.).