2023-07-12 04:35:00
A pre-existing solution
When Europe presents its plan to the Member States, it asks them to set up an IT system to collect data on the recipients of the funds. “Europe indeed wants to know, and this is legitimate, what each of the member countries does with the allocated funds and above all who receives and uses them: the companies, their subcontractors, etc.”, explains a close source. folder. Each Member State has therefore set out to find a valid computer system which makes it possible to verify, in a few clicks, who does what with the money granted. In Belgium, the solution is found: the UBO file (for “Ultimate Beneficial Owners”) is a register which contains the “beneficial owners” of a company or another legal entity.
Pension of parliamentarians: in Wallonia, “nothing is progressing”, denounces the PTB
During the previous legislature, the government, not without going through some stormy discussions, set up the UBO file for the purpose of combating tax evasion. For many experts, this file is even the sharpest weapon that Belgium has released for many, many years. This file, which has actually been in use for two years now, could, Vivaldi thought, be operational fairly quickly, in particular by adapting the device to the GDPR (privacy protection). “The Anti-Money Laundering Law of 2017 and the Royal Decree on the use of the UBO register had to be amended to allow each authority managing RRF funds at Belgian level to collect data on beneficial owners (UBO)”, complements another of our sources working on this file. At the helm, the teams of Finance Minister Vincent van Peteghem (CD&V) are working hard, in collaboration with the office of Secretary of State Thomas Dermine. Everything is going well, even if the work turns out to be more complicated than expected.
The administrative horrors of the Commission
”To automate this data collection, an API (Application Programming Interface) has been developed by the FPS Finances. This API can only be used once a series of IT tests have been carried out and after a protocol has been signed between FPS Finances and the management authority”, explains one of our sources. This is where the shoe pinches. These protocols are signed by all the entities and already countersigned by the FPS Finances for all the entities, except for the Flemish Region. The technical exchanges took longer and the Region is awaiting the counter-signature by the FPS Finance of its protocol. “On the operational level, Flanders is not yet 100% ready”.
As long as this administrative and operational problem has not been resolved, there can therefore be no request for funds from Belgium. It’s infuriating. A first tranche of 850 million euros is still at stake. The mini-reform of pensions, endorsed with great struggle by Vivaldi, is therefore not enough yet. A solution is announced soon, without further details. “That said, concludes one of our sources, I can assure you that there is a dry rattle in European capitals. It is understandable that the Commission wants to track the funds granted, but its requests sometimes amount to administrative horror. I believe that if there is a next time, it cannot happen like this again.”
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