Flemish Prime Minister Jan Jambon (N-VA) wants to bring the labor market and health policy to Flanders after 2024, he emphasized during his speech at the meeting of employers’ organization Voka at the start of the new working year. ‘What we do ourselves, we really do better.’
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In his speech, Jambon focused on the Flemish Relance Plan and called on Voka members to work with them on the elaboration of this plan. According to Jambon, billions of euros are not only invested in a sustainable recovery via the ‘Flemish resilience’ plan, it must also set Flanders in motion. The plan is to ‘bring Flanders to the top’ and ‘resolutely embrace the fourth industrial revolution’.
But in order to achieve further growth, Jambon believes it is essential that the Flemish government has more say in the labor market and health policy. ‘What we do ourselves, we really do better. In Brussels and Wallonia, at 61 and 65 percent respectively, the employment rate is a lot lower than in Flanders, we reach 75 percent. But we can do much, much better. We know the recipes for moving towards an eighty percent employment rate, but a number of those levers still remain federal.’
‘That is why, after 2024, the labor market policy, but also the health policy, must be in one hand, in our hands. So that we can finally push through with the necessary reforms that are not possible at the federal level,” said Jambon.
He also referred to the successful vaccination campaign in Flanders. ‘Where we did have control, we did what had to be done: excel. Look at our vaccination campaign. Nobody imitates us.’
Asymmetric cooperation agreements
Nevertheless, Jambon does not want to wait until 2024 and hopes to work as soon as possible on an asymmetric exercise of powers regarding labor market policy. ‘In this way, federal policy can be adapted to the reality in Flanders, because that is simply different from the reality in Brussels and Wallonia’, says Jambon. Earlier also called Flemish Minister of Work Hilde Crevits (CD&V) to those asymmetrical cooperation agreements.
According to Jambon, this is ‘the only way to get the finances back in order in a sustainable way, to make room for investments, for greenery and for more prosperity’.
‘I have every confidence that Deputy Prime Minister Hilde Crevits will continue to work on this file. She is asking that asymmetric policy of the federal government and she will continue to do so. The federal government must step in here’, says Jambon.
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