And you ? Would you agree to drop one or two holidays? You should know that Belgium currently has ten legal holidays per year, one of the lowest figures in Europe. Only four other countries display an equivalent (Ireland) or lower (Netherlands, Germany, Denmark) number of “unemployed” days. The twenty-two other European Union member states have given their workers between eleven and fifteen days to their workers.
Cyprus holds the record for the number of public holidays granted to employees, with a total of 15. Follow Croatia, Spain, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Malta, which each count 14.
The holidays defined in Belgian legislation are as follows: January 1 (New Year), April 21 (Easter Monday), May 1 (Labor Day), May 29 (Ascension), June 9 (Monday of Pentecost), July 21 (National Day), August 15 (Assumption), November 1 (Toussaint), November 11 (Armistice) and December 25 (Christmas).
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Legal protection
In Belgium, public holidays are supervised by the law of January 4, 1974. This one stipulates that workers cannot be occupied during these ten days, with some exceptions in certain sectors such as Horeca or health care, where Sunday work is authorized. In these cases, compensatory rest must be granted.
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The legislation also provides that a public holiday falling on a usual Sunday or one day should not be replaced. This compensation is organized at the level of the company, through a works council, a union delegation or an agreement between the employer and the worker.
Part -time workers also benefit from this protection, provided that the public holiday coincides with a normally provided day. For variable hours, a remuneration supplement is calculated according to the average working time.
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No reform announced
To date, no removal of public holidays has however been mentioned by the Belgian federal or regional authorities. That said, nothing is ever engraved in marble. Like other tracks recently put on the table such as the limitation of unemployment benefits or the reform of the highest pension indexing, a modification of the legislation framing the holidays remains legally possible.
