But the plans never excited the media world as much as they excited Fehervari. A cursory scrutiny of the new channel's finances showed that the plans were too ambitious for the means he had at his disposal. Telenet took a long time to finally agree to admit Exqi to its cable network. Alfacam, a quoted company, was restricted in how much it could invest, and Fehervari and his wife put up an estimated €5 million of their own money - but it was a long way from being enough.
The new charges involve access to the superfast VDSL2 broadband network, offering download speeds of more than 20 megabytes a second, which Belgacom was obliged to open up to its competitors in 2008. The BIPT rejected Belgacom’s argument that open access would undermine the competitive edge the company expected to gain from developing the network and make their investment retroactively un-economic.
Despite the high number of non- and late payers, only one in 20 companies uses the services of a collection agency. Most find that route too expensive in relation to the sums recovered; others fear it might be seen as heavy-handed and scare away customers. However, one in five businesses are considering changing their minds. Unizo now offers its members a bill-collection service where payment is on a sliding scale depending on when and how much the client pays.
Erasmus Mundus courses are very prestigious because of the strict criteria under which funding is given. Courses must be of high academic quality, able to attract top students and involve international academic and industrial partners.
“The interesting thing about this year’s European selection is that most partnerships also involve non-European universities, and businesses are now a part of most of the consortia,” said Piet Henderikx of the KUL’s international office. The six new courses are:
In 2008, foreign investment in Belgium stood at €85.2 billion, slightly down from a peak in 2007 of €91.4 billion. Last year, however, the figure plummeted to €26.3 billion, or a return to the level of 2005.
Dropping from second to tenth place, Belgium saw itself overtaken by China, France, Hong Kong, the UK, Russia, Germany, Saudi Arabia and India. Belgium still performs better than the Netherlands, Spain and Italy.
The bridging pension is effectively an unemployment benefit which, unlike the standard unemployment benefit, does not decrease according to the length of time the recipient is jobless. But it has been criticised as a state subsidy for redundancies, since the government pays the benefit, while the employer pays a supplement. In other words, the company which has made the workers unemployed pays only the supplement, while the taxpayer has to pay the rest.
The institute commissioned JUMP, an organisation that assists women to develop their professional careers, to survey 45,000 professionally active women across Belgium. The survey results highlight some interesting discrepancies and trends that stand in stark contrast with many deeply rooted perceptions of what it means to be an entrepreneur in Belgium.
According to a proposal introduced by outgoing federal minister of farming and the self-employed, Sabine Laruelle, the system would provide coverage for small businesses in the event of prolonged illness and maternity leave. In 2008, there were 18,552 cases of self-employed business people experiencing prolonged illness and another 5,422 cases of business owners on maternity leave.
The investigation, which began in 2008, is being led by the special tax-inspection agency, the BBI. The complaint targets two parts of the Santens family, as well as business partner Lucien Vanwynsberghe, and alleges the family used its own international subsidiary, Santens International, as well as straw-man shell companies in tax havens, to launder income and avoid paying tax.
Santens, based in Oudenaarde, was set up in 1913 and now holds a leading position in the production of bath and kitchen linens, manufacturing 100,000 towels a day, 90% for export.
The station building is the largest part of the whole project, which also includes the construction of other public transport facilities – the station is served by 72 different bus lines – and renovation of the surrounding area. The contract, announced last week by ProRail, the Dutch rail management authority, is worth €95 million.
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