The exact numbers of business owners who earn less than minimum wage is unclear, but Unizo puts the number at 15%. Last week, the Neutral Union for the Self-Employed (NSZ) said its polls show that 18% of fully self-employed people are making less than €833 a month net, less than the poverty line, which is set at €972 a month.

The figures should, both organisations point out, also be considered in the context of the business income not necessarily making up the whole of the household income: Many self-employed people have a partner in employment.

The jobs fair, held at the end of June, was supported by 17 healthcare establishments in Flanders and attracted 3,500 visitors. In Flanders, job vacancies for nurses go unfilled, despite the best efforts of the health-care sector to attract more young people to the profession. Health-care consortium Zorgnet Vlaanderen estimates that the sector will require 60,000 new staff in the coming six years, as a consequence of retirements.

The principal complaint of Eddy Claesen, a tax advisor from Genk who set up the petition at stopdefiscaleonzin.be, is a penalty for business people who wrongly submit private expenses as business expenses, thus avoiding tax. If inspectors find the expense has been wrongly submitted, the business is liable to pay a fine of 309% of the value. The penalty, Claesen said, is “completely out of proportion”.

The number of new jobs across the country, however, was down from 4,010 to 3,599, a drop of 10%, largely as a result of the sort of investment projects evolving away from industry and logistics towards less labour-intensive services and sales.

Flemish minister-president Kris Peeters, speaking at a Flanders in Action study day, was not overly concerned about Flanders’ performance. The fall in the number of projects last year to 74 still put Flanders ahead of the other two regions in Belgium, which together shared 79 new projects.