The major wage agreement that the De Croo government ratified on Tuesday also includes a corona premium of 500 euros for the ‘vulnerable’ self-employed, especially in the catering industry and the event sector.
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The De Croo government held an electronic council of ministers on Tuesday evening to ratify the wage agreement, now that the social partners have recorded their agreement on, among other things, an increase in minimum wages. The PS had made the first file dependent on the second.
The wage agreement includes as is known, the wage standard of 0.4 percent on top of the index for this and next year, a one-off corona premium of up to 500 euros that can be negotiated in companies or sectors, and an increase of the lowest benefits by almost 700 million euros.
But on Tuesday it turned out that the agreement also includes a premium of 500 euros net for self-employed persons. That reported La Libre Belgique and is attached to The standard.
Strikingly, where the employee premium was designed for companies that did well despite the crisis, the premium for self-employed persons is aimed at those who received a bridging right for six months from September 2020, because they were unable to carry out their activities. About 100,000 self-employed persons would qualify, especially in the catering and events sector. The cost of the premium is estimated at 56 million euros. Unlike the corona premium in the private sector, that money comes from the budget.
The premium is therefore rather the counterpart of the ‘protection premium’ that Minister of Employment Pierre-Yves Dermagne (PS) stipulated for employees who were temporarily unemployed for a long time. In 2020 it was budgeted at 180 million euros, for 2021 at about 52 million.
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