This is a proposal that is still in draft form but it is already widely debated. Ecolo announced a week ago that it wanted to give €30,000 to all young people aged 25 to support and accompany them in order to get started in life.
This idea would be financed by a new tax on the richest, and would cost the country 2.5 billion euros in the country. What sticks for the dementors of this proposal: this sum would be paid to young people without any conditions.
On the set of It’s not all Sunday, Gilles Vanden Burre, federal deputy Ecolo, came to explain a solution which is intended to be universal. It would be an answer to “alarm cry” to deal with the inequalities experienced by young Belgians, a “springboard” for everyone’s life projects. “This money might really be used by young people to build a life project”assures the deputy Ecolo who does not want to sideline anyone. “Other countries are in the test phase like in South Korea, where 400€ per month are given to young people unconditionally.”
Securing the future for the MR
But how can you be sure that this money will be spent on stable and sustainable projects? The MR also offers financial support to young people aged 25, but with allocation criteria. €25,000 might thus be donated to young people who “training, real estate projects or to create a business”, explains David Leisterh, Brussels deputy and president of Mr Brussels. Obtaining these €25,000 would also be a strategic choice for our young people since they “would replace all current allowances”.
We find bad solutions to a real problem
For the PS, represented by Khalil Aouasti (federal deputy) on the set of It’s not every day on Sunday, “we find bad solutions to a real problem”. The PS continues to defend a basic income for all 18-25 year olds who would receive €500 per month, which would make a total of €42,000 donated over several years.
“What message are we going to give to young people?”
If all the guests of this Sunday agree on the need to help young people, the answers seem unreasonable in particular for Tim Vandenput, federal deputy of the Open VLD who wonders regarding “the message we are going to give to young people”worried that these imagine that the money “fell from the sky”. “People have to work two or three years to earn this amount”he remarks.
The economist Bruno Colmant also regrets an idea that is not very egalitarian: “There are people who need a lot more, people with disabilities for example or people with life difficulties, others don’t need it…”
For him, money paid to young people would not be ideal. It therefore offers a less direct and more targeted boost for young workers. “We should give that in the form of a tax credit”that’s to say, “€30,000 in the form of a tax reduction for a young person who works and does not pay taxes”.
