The Belgian newspaper La Libre Belgique published last Monday an article that dealt with the situation of unemployed people who are experiencing great difficulties in finding a job.

The article tells the story of Étienne, among others, which gives an accurate picture of the situation of many unemployed people with reduced work capacity, who are compelled to leave the insurance system because they reached the end of the pathway towards employment that was offered to them.

Blurry guidance

These stories and the continuing tightening of the insurance system are of great concern to the Belgian League of Human Rights (LDH), which already and repeatedly raised the alarm when the category “MMPP” was created. This category refers to any unemployed individual who has a "medical, mental, psychological and/or psychiatric" condition.

If the category highlights problems that are sometimes real, it also has a dangerous stigmatizing effect on these specific unemployed people. At the time of its creation, the outlines of the guidance that these unemployed people were offered were blurry.

A few years ago, we saw tension arise between politicians and economic leaders over two options: not supporting a "reserve army" of unemployed people regarded as unproductive and who could be penalized by the ONEm (the national unemployment service) and excluded from unemployment benefits; or offering support and guidance to those who suffered from a disability resulting in an incapacity to work, with a view to professional rehabilitation. The authorities seem to have chosen the former.

Messy reforms

The government's reforms to the activation procedure for unemployed people who are incapable of work make it impossible to limit the social dismantling that resulted from the generalized activation of unemployed people with a reduced capacity of work. In recent years, the reforms that were implemented in the field of unemployment insurance have been pushing a number of these unemployed people to ask for the intervention of medical care and health insurance benefits, and, in the event of a refusal, to turn towards the social assistance system.

As the government considers establishing a public service in the area of unemployment insurance as a public service, as it already did with regard to the right to social integration, LDH suggests that it should back off and think about the overall coherence of the existing reforms regarding the social security system.

The League of Human Rights also notes the role it plays in the protection of the fundamental right to social security and reminds the government that the best way to achieve this goal is to promote a strong insurance system.