Belgium: government agreement over budget and reforms to working time

The government’s 2016 budget was presented on Saturday 09 April under the heading ‘a responsible budget in line with European commitments’ and marks a step on the road to improving the structural balance by 0.6% GDP as demanded by Europe. In terms of social elements, the agreement especially intends to generalize annual working time and other flexibility measures, as well as greater employee-employer responsibility in addressing long-term illness.
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Annualizing working time. The government’s motto is to make work more ‘feasible’ (c.f. article No. 9515), in other words more ‘flexible’ from the employer point of view and more ‘sustainable’ from the employee standpoint. To get there, the government is putting forward the possibility of extending ‘annual working time’ currently operating in certain sectors via an agreement with the social partners, and entails making the 38-hour working week more flexible in all sectors and could apply in comp

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