Belgian government forced to freeze unemployment reform unfairly affecting informal carers

The Belgian federal government has decided to gradually phase out the right to receive unemployment benefits for an unlimited period of time. The stated objective is to encourage job seekers to return to work more quickly. The reform has been implemented in phases since early January. By the summer, nearly 200,000 unemployed people will be excluded from the system. A large majority of them live in Wallonia and Brussels, the French-speaking part of the country.

However, not everyone will be able to return to work easily. This is particularly true for informal carers who provide intensive or continuous care to a seriously ill or severely disabled member of their household. Because of their caregiving responsibilities, they cannot hold a full-time job. Some are unable to work at all, while others can only work a few days per week and rely on unemployment benefits to supplement their income.

Until now, inspectors at the National Employment Office (ONEM) often took these complex personal circumstances into account and, out of humanity, refrained from imposing sanctions. This is no longer possible: beneficiaries are now automatically excluded after a maximum of two years, depending on the number of years previously worked that entitled them to benefits. No dialogue is possible anymore. Family realities are no longer taken into account.

Despite our repeated requests, the Federal Minister of Employment, David Clarinval (MR, French-speaking liberal party), has refused to meet with us since June 2025. We wanted to warn him that the reform he was preparing would unfairly penalise informal carers, whose presence is vital for the people they support. We also asked him to introduce a temporary exception while a specific social status could be developed for these individuals, many of whom rely entirely on unemployment benefits simply to live — or survive.

Many of them will not even qualify for social assistance from their local Public Social Welfare Centre (CPAS). If their partner earns more than €1,750 per month, assistance will also be refused. These families will therefore be forced to live on a single income. Already in precarious situations, many will be pushed into levels of poverty that are both untenable and unacceptable.

A large-scale media campaign

Faced with the minister’s refusal to engage, our non-profit organisation launched a major media campaign in early January to expose the inhuman consequences of the reform and propose solutions.

We chose to put faces and personal stories behind the statistics. Journalists were provided with full background information as well as contact details for parents of severely disabled children affected by the exclusions who agreed to speak publicly. This required considerable courage at a time when social media often fuels harsh and hostile reactions. As several participants told us, they felt they had nothing left to lose.

The campaign received unprecedented media coverage. All major media outlets picked up the story. It immediately sparked a genuine societal debate about informal caregiving and the absence of a proper social status for carers — a debate that had never previously taken place, at least in French-speaking Belgium.

The testimonies of these courageous parents generated strong public emotion and — unusually — almost unanimous public support for the affected families. This quickly led us to launch a petition calling for the reform to be frozen for carers, supported by 93 other organisations. Within one month, it gathered nearly 20,000 signatures. The call to sign was widely shared on social media, where our number of followers grew dramatically. Posters were also displayed in public spaces encouraging citizens to sign the petition.

The debate reached an unprecedented scale, and our counterparts from the Dutch-speaking part of the country joined the initiative, likewise calling for a humane solution for all those affected.

Political leaders were ultimately forced to respond, including Prime Minister Bart De Wever (N-VA, Flemish nationalist party), who promised a short-term solution.

That solution came at the very last moment, on Thursday 26 February — just three days before the 1 March deadline — following more than six hours of debate in the Federal Parliament. The outcome was a one-year freeze of the measure affecting informal carers.

During this period, carers will receive a flat-rate allowance. While the amount remains modest — particularly for single parents raising a child with a disability — it at least preserves a minimum level of social protection for those who were on the verge of losing everything.

All political parties now recognise the need to develop a genuine social status for informal carers. There are nearly two million carers in Belgium, out of a population of eleven million people. As elsewhere, their needs are diverse and extend far beyond unemployment benefits — an issue that affects only a few thousand of them.

Our fight continues:

Our petition is available on Change.org:
https://bit.ly/stop-exclusion-chomage-aidants

More information about the campaign can be found here:
https://wallonie.aidants-proches.be/tout-sur-les-exclusions-du-chomage-des-aidants-proches/

Christian Carpentier
Communication Manager
ASBL Aidants Proches