Several measures come into force on June 1.
New salary increase in the civil service
Salaries in the public service will be adapted to the cost of living and will increase by 2% on June 1. The central index for social benefits and wages in the public sector was reached last April. The index should be reached once more in October 2022 and then in February 2023, and should not be reached once more before 2024, according to forecasts by the Federal Planning Bureau.
Entry into force of the sexual criminal law reform
The important reform of sexual criminal law, the result of long work in committee, will come into force on June 1. The bill aims to take into account the evolution of society and to place the notion of consent at the heart of the new legislation. Until now, sexual offenses were considered crimes and offenses once morest the order of families and public morals, as provided for in legislation dating from 1867. Sexual offenses will now belong to offenses once morest persons. Thus, the notion of indecent assault disappears while the notions of rape and voyeurism are expanded. Incest is also and finally mentioned in the law.
On the penal level, the sanctions are adapted, rape being punished by a sentence of 15 to 20 years in prison, instead of 5 to 10 years. Conversely, for the sake of proportionality, the penalties for voyeurism are reduced. In certain circumstances, the judge will have the possibility of pronouncing alternative sentences to prison for the perpetrators of sexual offences.
The bill also provides for the harmonization of the age of sexual majority at 16, with tolerance from the age of 14 in the event of consent and a maximum age difference of three years. It also decriminalizes prostitution, but not pimping, which will be punished by imprisonment of one to five years and a fine of 500 to 25,000 euros. Prostitution remains prohibited to minors. As for its , it is prohibited with a few exceptions.
This reform of sexual criminal law is carried out by the Minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne.
Orange increases some of its prices
Orange Belgium will increase some of its tariffs from 1 June. Customers of the telecommunications operator will, however, benefit from an increase in the amount of data and an extension of multi-card discounts.
Concretely, the price of mobile subscriptions will undergo an increase of between 1 and 3 euros which will however be accompanied by an increase in data ranging from 0.5 to 10 GB. The prices of fixed products will also increase.
Multi-card customers as well as customers who have a fixed Internet subscription will benefit from a reduction of 1 euro on their mobile subscriptions.
The rates for out-of-bundle costs for mobile subscriptions, international calls and roaming will also be on the rise. The MMS will also become chargeable (0.24 euro) whereas it is currently free.
Doctors’ fees indexed by 2%
Doctors will see their fees increase by 2% from June 1, 2022.
This intermediate indexation follows negotiations for the 2022-2023 medical-mutualist agreement. The Belgian Association of Medical Unions (Absym) had questioned the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (Inami) on the indexation of 0.71%, which did not take into account the inflation rate of December 2021 but accused rather a delay of six months.
The Council of Ministers finally approved a one-off additional budget of 207 million euros to support healthcare providers during the sharp rise in inflation.
Of this total amount, 112 million euros are intended for doctors, which represents an intermediate indexation of 2% of their fees as of June 1, 2022.
