On Friday, November 29, the federal agreement agreed on measures to support competitiveness and employment on financial (labor, energy or capital cost) and non-financial aspects (innovation, training, types of products). Labor costs will be cut by 2.37 percent by 2015. The agreement provides that VAT on electricity will go from 21 down to 6 percent starting on April 1 in order to slow inflation – and therefore wage increases – down. (Ref. 130758)
Drastic cut in expenditures. Thus, the government has decided to unfreeze €450 million for the next 3 cross-industry agreements (2015/17/19), i.e. a total of €1.35 billion. This budget will be divided into 3 parts: a linear contributions cut (of which 20 percent – that is 30 million, have to be dedicated to the non-merchant sector), a contributions cut targeting low wages, and a contributions cut targeting sectors subject to international competition (night and team work, notably in the auto industry, and businesses that recruit young jobseekers, especially SMEs).
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