While the energy crisis is over, "some eligible people have been waiting for the basic support package for a year," said group leader of the Flemish socialist Vooruit party in the Federal Parliament, Melissa Depraetere.
In addition to the €100 heating premium, the Federal Government spent more than €2 billion on two energy premium packages for the winter of 2022-2023. For the two packages together, this amounted to €675 for gas and €305 for electricity.
"I will not deny that dealing with the large influx of files was a real tour de force, but one last effort still needs to be made," Depraetere said in the Chamber on Monday, De Standaard reports. "Many people who are entitled to a basic energy package have been waiting for a year. That cannot be the intention."
The vast majority received these basic packages automatically through their energy supplier, but that was not always the case: for the first package, 214,000 people had to apply themselves.
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Meanwhile, nearly half of the applicants already received their premiums while about 122,000 others were not considered eligible because they already enjoyed a social rate, were not private individuals or still had a fixed energy contract from before 30 September 2021.
Still, some 40,500 people are waiting for their premiums even though the first one should have been paid out by the end of June and the second by the end of September, at the latest. Belgian Economy Minister Pierre-Yves Dermagne called in extra staff to deal with the paperwork but said there is "still a long way to go" before every case has been handled.
Before the summer, Dermagne announced that he wanted to complete the entire operation by the end of 2023 but it is not clear whether he will succeed, as the cases that are left often concern complex files containing errors, made by either the applicant or the energy suppliers.
