Belgium has decided. And in a democracy, decisions once debated, voted, and translated into policy, do not remain theoretical. They become lived reality.
As of 1 January 2026, a first group of jobseekers has begun to lose unemployment benefits, with a phased rollout that continues until 1 July 2027. The first wave affects roughly 21,500 people, many of them in Wallonia. And by summer 2027, the reform is expected to impact nearly 103,000 residents.
I opposed this direction when it was still a plan. In my earlier piece, I warned against a welfare debate that risks shifting from fighting poverty to fighting the poor. I still believe that warning was valid. But the point of democratic politics is not to continue campaigning after the ballots are counted. It is to help society govern itself wisely, cautiously, and humanely, especially when reform touches the lives of those with the least margin for error.
My colleagues on the political Left who are still in active service might read this and say to me: how convenient! They may be right because, since retiring from active party politics, I no longer must be part of that hard decision to cut too close to the bones of vulnerable fellow citizens. When it is the law, you are duty bound to comply, irrespective of political persuasion.
So I write now not to relitigate yesterday, but to prevent tomorrow’s avoidable harm.
Activation is not cruelty unless we make it so
Even as critics think otherwise, most liberals understand that Belgium’s welfare state was not built to romanticise dependency. We simply argue that it was built to protect dignity while enabling participation. Support and responsibility were always meant to travel in tandem.
In principle, governments are right to ask: how do we encourage labour-market participation, reduce long-term joblessness, and protect public finances? Those are legitimate policy aims. But legitimacy of intent does not guarantee legitimacy of outcome.
A hard truth sits at the centre of this reform: if you withdraw income support without simultaneously removing the barriers that keep people unemployed, you don’t "activate" people. You destabilise them. You push them from unemployment insurance into deeper poverty, precarious housing, debt traps, family stress, and sometimes untreated mental health conditions. The social cost does not disappear. It merely relocates often to OCMW/CPAS, to charities, to food aid networks, and to already overstretched local services.
Brussels authorities have already publicly prepared for that pressure, warning that thousands may turn to social welfare services as benefit limits bite. This is the pivot Belgium must get right: reform must be paired with protection.
A humane implementation: six guardrails Belgium should adopt now
If the reform is to proceed, and the sad reality is that it is proceeding, then federal and regional governments should adopt a do no avoidable harm framework. Concretely:
1. No one should fall off a cliff: build a guaranteed "bridge" to support
The moment unemployment benefits stop, the transition to alternative support must be automatic, guided, and time-bound; not an obstacle course of appointments, paperwork, missed letters, and administrative confusion.
A person losing benefits should receive one coordinated pathway: employment guidance, social support, and income stabilisation where eligible. If activation is the goal, then administrative chaos is policy sabotage.
2. Fund the shock where it lands: municipalities need real money, not moral lectures
If the policy shifts people from federal unemployment protection toward local welfare assistance, then the federal level must co-finance the increased load. Otherwise, the reform becomes a fiscal shell game: savings for one level of government, pressure and political backlash for another.
Belgium should create a quarterly Reform Impact Dashboard that tracks transitions to work (focusing on quality, not just any job), transitions to CPAS/OCMW, indicators of poverty and housing insecurity, levels of debt and arrears, and demand for health and mental health services.
3. Replace "one-size-fits-all" with case-based activation
Some jobseekers are unemployed because they lack skills. Others because they are older, sick, caring for relatives, facing language barriers, or living with invisible disabilities. A uniform time cap treats these realities as excuses. They are not excuses; they are contexts.
Belgium must implement individualised, case-based activation that distinguishes between those who need skills and placement, those who need health and psychosocial support, those who need care infrastructure (childcare and eldercare), and those who are effectively unemployable under current labour-market conditions and need protected pathways.
A mature welfare state doesn’t pretend all unemployment is identical.
4. Expand training exceptions into a real ladder, not a loophole
The current framework includes an exception for people enrolled by 31 December 2025 in training for shortage occupations, allowing benefits to be extended until training ends (under conditions).
That is sensible—but too narrow if Belgium wants genuine activation.
Training must be: Accessible (cost, transport, childcare); realistic (matching labour-market demand); and supportive (coaching, internships, employer linkages).
If training is truly the "on-ramp" to work, then government should widen, simplify, and properly resource it, especially for those closest to the labour-market margins.
5. Protect dignity in assessment and communication
When people receive letters informing them that their benefits end, the message must not be punitive. The tone matters because it signals whether society still recognises the recipient as a citizen or treats them as a burden.
Public discourse should also be policed for scapegoating. Belgium must reject narratives that imply poverty is a character flaw or that long-term unemployment is best solved through humiliation. Policy can be firm without being dehumanising.
6. Monitor outcomes like lives depend on it, because they do
Belgium should publish a quarterly Reform Impact Dashboard that tracks: transitions to work (quality, not just any job); transitions to CPAS/OCMW; poverty and housing insecurity indicators; debt and arrears; health and mental health service demand.
And there must be a willingness to adjust. If evidence shows rising hardship without commensurate employment gains, democratic responsibility requires correction, not stubbornness.
A word to Europe: do not misread Belgium
Across Europe, many governments have long looked to Belgium as proof that a generous, humane social protection system can coexist with fiscal responsibility and labour-market participation. That reputation now places a burden not only on Belgium, but on Europe itself. This reform will be read, rightly or wrongly, as a signal.
If Belgium, the careful compromiser and the laboratory of social dialogue, normalises time-limited protection without equally visible investment in activation, care, and dignity, others will feel licensed to go further and cut deeper. Europe must therefore resist the temptation to treat this moment as validation of a harsher continental turn.
The lesson to draw is not that social protection has failed, but that reform divorced from social investment corrodes trust, cohesion, and legitimacy. If Europe still claims a distinct social model, one that tempers markets with solidarity, then Belgium’s experience should be a warning light, not a green one. The benchmark must not slide from humane protection to managed abandonment.
The moral test of governance
There is a phrase I used before that I repeat now with even greater urgency: we are cutting too close to the bones of vulnerable fellow citizens—fellow humans.
It is precisely when the political system has "decided" that the responsibility of leadership becomes most demanding. Because implementation is where policy stops being ideology and starts being ethics.
Belgium can still make this reform worthy of its social model if it treats activation as a supported pathway rather than a punishment clock, funds the consequences honestly, and refuses to confuse fiscal discipline with moral superiority.
In the weeks ahead, the first wave will feel the reform not as a concept but as an empty line in a bank account. The question is whether Belgium will meet that moment with bureaucratic indifference or with the quiet competence and compassion that once made its welfare model a benchmark.
Democracy brought us here. Now decency must guide what we do next.
