Van Tigchelt wants the right to do business in the Constitution: “The administrative confusion is disastrous for the economy”

In his own words, Minister of Justice Paul Van Tigchelt (Open VLD) has worked hard in recent months. He ran the Antwerp 10 Miles, but above all he spoke to business leaders of all kinds. “From Deme and BASF, but also from SMEs and farms. Everyone complains about the labor costs, but they actually complain even more about the administrative confusion. That makes it very difficult for companies to grow.”

The liberal gives a number of examples from his area, in the Kempen. A developer spends more money on lawyers than on architects. Permits can take up to ten years to obtain. A farmer whose chicken stable has burned down will not receive a new permit to rebuild everything. The sponsor of the local football team wants to expand, but two farmers are blocking the meat processing company’s plans. “If you add all that up, something must be going wrong. The helicopter perspective is certainly missing. The compartmentalization in the issuing of permits is total.”

“We risk that our economy will stall due to bad policy,” it said. Van Tigchelt refers to the approach after the terrorist attack eight years ago. This exposed the compartmentalization of the various security services. It created a sense of urgency. A parliamentary investigative committee put its finger on the wound, after which things improved. “Take the problems of Ineos, Zaventem airport and the chicken farmer with his burned-out stable together: all of that calls for action.”

Checking boxes

For Van Tigchelt, the first step is to anchor the freedom of entrepreneurship in Article 23 of the Constitution. For various reasons, it was overlooked when the Constitution was written in 1830. Such a constitutional provision sooner or later seeps into the legal order, even into the jurisprudence of civil servants. It leads to preliminary questions before the Constitutional Court and gives the judge more scope in assessing conflicts. “It is not a miracle solution, but it reflects the social urgency.”

For the same reason, Open VLD opposed the inclusion of animal rights in the constitution. “We are also for animal welfare. But that is not an innocent principle. The court’s review can be to the detriment of companies. It can make keeping (poultry) livestock more difficult, or even finch raising or pigeon racing.”

The “right to protect a healthy environment” is already included in the Constitution. As a result, this legally outweighs the right to do business. “Indeed, that’s why the pendulum has swung too far. I am not saying that the shore herb, the water lobelia and the water plantain are unimportant in the Turnhout fen area. But all those rules make it very difficult for the farmer or the chemical company to grow. If the right to do business is constitutionally established, you cannot prevent companies from doing business, as degrowth theories want.”

And the right to strike?

Writing a constitutional article is easy. Getting it into the constitution is politically less easy – although Van Tigchelt has not yet recovered from the fact that barely seventy votes were sufficient for a two-thirds majority for animal rights, due to the many abstentions. The Greens’ opposition to his idea is obvious. The labor movement will also react with restraint. After all, the right to do business can curtail the right to strike. Van Tigchelt. “Yet that is not at all my intention. People have already accused me of that. The right to strike may not be in the Constitution, but it is a basic European right.”

Adjusting the Constitution is only a first step. Van Tigchelt also advocates reforms in licensing policy. “Take the Council for Permit Disputes. Sixty percent of procedures lead to destruction. This was preceded by decisions by municipal and provincial services and boards. Either they don’t understand it, or the legislation is too difficult. As a lawyer I say: ‘This is not right.’ We have to adapt how it works.”

“Smart people” from the civil service, judges, politicians and involved business people must consider a “global plan” that guarantees the right to do business: faster permits, fewer rules, more legal certainty. Entrepreneurs must also be involved in this. Van Tigchelt draws a parallel with the corporate courts, where lay judges from the business world are called in. “The site must be given a voice. Indeed, this mainly concerns Flemish powers. And no, I have no ambitions there. But I want to start amending the Constitution at the federal level.”