After Groen, Vlaams Belang and PVDA, Open VLD is now also responding to the administrative agreement proposed by N-VA and Vooruit on Saturday morning. According to the liberal party, the new city council is leaving traders and middle classes to their fate. “After six years of being abandoned, they get another six years for free,” says Magalie Verstraelen (Open VLD), district councilor in Antwerp.
The new city council of N-VA and Vooruit presented its new administrative agreement for the city of Antwerp on Saturday. For the liberal opposition party Open VLD, there is a major blind spot in the new agreement, namely an ambitious future perspective for the Antwerp middle class and the commercial centers in both the city center and the districts. “After six years of being abandoned, they get another six years for free,” responds Magalie Verstraelen, district councilor in Antwerp. “Local businesses are the salt and pepper of our city. They are small self-employed people who revive neighborhoods and are the sponsor of the youth association or sports club.”
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According to the party, the tax reduction for distressed commercial centers, which was included in the previous administrative agreement, is now definitively cancelled. This would mean that the many district centers that are struggling today would no longer have any prospects for the future. Under pressure from the Liberals, the previous administrative agreement between N-VA, Open VLD and Vooruit included a tax reduction for the various commercial centers in the city that are currently struggling due to high cadastral incomes and land costs.
“Forgetting hardworking entrepreneurs”
Targeted reduction of surcharges for those centers could have reduced land costs there. However, competent alderman Koen Kennis refused to actually implement the provision. “With Koen Kennis we had an alderman for guilty negligence for six years,” said Bavo De Mol, district councilor for Open VLD + MXM Anders in Merksem. “When traders in distressed trading centers begged for oxygen, they were bluntly told that they might be better off accepting that there was no future for their trading street. This will become reality with the new administrative agreement. Instead of a birthday party for the 25th anniversary of the districts, it would have been better to take real measures such as targeted tax cuts that can make the district and commercial centers vibrate again.”
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The provision has completely disappeared in the new administrative agreement. According to Open VLD, the Antwerp middle class and the trading centers in all districts are being left to their fate by the new administration. “It is clear that in a government without liberals, the hardworking entrepreneurs are very quickly forgotten,” says Fons Borginon, chairman of Open VLD Stad Antwerp. “We will fight hard in the coming years to get their interests back on the table in city hall.”
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