The Mouvement Reformateur (MR) party, part of Belgium’s ruling coalition, has urged Pensions Minister Jan Jambon to revise planned pension changes that would reduce credited periods for arts workers.
In a statement issued on Tuesday and backed by the party leadership, Charles Gardier, an MR legislator in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, said it was unacceptable to strip pension rights from people “who dare, who create and who innovate.”
The Belgian Parliament is due to examine the draft law in plenary on Wednesday, with a vote expected on Thursday.
The bill would limit the number of credited periods that count towards a worker's pension entitlement by gradually lowering the maximum percentage from 40% to 20%, depending on a person’s year of birth.
Exceptions are planned for some professions, including dock workers and fishermen, but not for arts workers, the sector says.
MR said on Tuesday that it had decided to raise these concerns.
Gardier asked why an exemption considered possible for Antwerp dock workers could not also apply to Liège rock musicians and, more broadly, to Belgian artists. He argued that the issue was not the actual workload involved but the employment status concerned, adding that the financial impact on the Belgian state would be marginal.
The liberal politician wants the draft law to take into account the royal decree of 25 November 1991, which froze the degressive reduction of benefits for arts workers.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Avignon Festival, Wallonia-Brussels Federation Minister-President Elisabeth Degryse is quoted by the RTBF as acknowledging that the current text was problematic for arts workers whose careers began before 2014.
