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Serial and parallel entrepreneurs are neither part of the public debates nor policy discussions. Those particular forms of entrepreneurship are not recognised as such. Therefore no publication on issues concerning them exists. Part-time entrepreneurs as well as self-employed workers are, since many years, part of the public debates. The issues are about improving their status (access to social security benefits, supporting entrepreneurship, etc.).More recently, transfers of a company is part of the public debate and there exist some national studies on this phenomenon.

QUESTIONNAIRE

Part I: Public/policy discussion

General policy discussions and policy approach

Do the public/policy discussions specifically deal with the different forms of business activities, since when and for how long?

For each of the entrepreneurship/business activities covered by policy discussions, which policy domains are they covered in? Please indicate with an ’X‘ where relevant.

In which media and forum do the public debate and policy discussions about the different types of entrepreneurship take place?

Please indicate whether they are implicitly (e.g. publications are covering entrepreneurs in general with implicit implications for the different forms of entrepreneurs/business activities) covered and/or explicitly mentioned (for instance parallel entrepreneurs are explicitly mentioned in publications) in these publications

Interprofessional medias for independent entrepreneurs and SMEs :

Official professional forums:

Political debates and ‘ad hoc’ legislative acts:

Specific topics to describe the different types of entrepreneurship

What has motivated the public debate?

Please specify for each of the five forms of entrepreneurship:

- Balancing the attractiveness of the self-employed workers’ social security with regard to that of employees

- Improving training in management for entrepreneurs (business skills and competences)

- Separating the entrepreneur/family holdings and assets from that of the company

- Promoting women entrepreneurship

- Improving part-time entrepreneurs’ social security

- Allowing lucrative activities for the pensioned-off entrepreneurs

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- Compensating for the demographic effects of the post-war years baby boomers

- Insuring companies’ longevity/durability by a successful transmission

What has been the focus of the policy discussion?

To help you answer question 5, we list some examples of key issues that could be addressed in the policy discussion:

Please specify for each of the five forms of entrepreneurship:

Table 5: The policy focus in the public debate within each of the emerging forms of entrepreneurship

- Improving self-employed workers’ social security

- Reducing administrative formalities for new business start-ups

- Improving access to finance for SMEs

- Proposing simplified form for legal entities

- Protecting the entrepreneurs’ family house

- Providing indisposed entrepreneurs (sick people or people with disabilities) external assistance- Responding to women entrepreneurship specificities

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Has the public discussion resulted in a concrete outcome/impact?

Yes

Please specify for each of the five forms of entrepreneurship:

Table 6: Outcome or impact of the public debate of the emerging forms of entrepreneurship

- Creation of the ‘Banque-carrefour des Entreprises’, an electronic register resuming identification data on for-profit and non-profit companies as well as on liberal professions practicing on the Belgian territory. The European Central Bank supports this Belgian State initiative which aims at simplifying the administrative procedures for companies as well as to contribute to a more effective organisation of the public services.- Creation of the ‘Guichets uniques’ to help new business start-ups (information, relay and support in their obligations) and to simplify the administrative procedures.- Law on ‘SPRL starter’: In force since the 1st June 2010, this new legal form of company allows to create a company with a limited capital from € 1 to 18,550. The aim of this initiative is to encourage the entrepreneurs to cross the step. - Law on the protection of the family house - Programming increase of self-employed retirement benefit

- The reform of the law on the access to the regulated professions

- Law on the status of the ‘substitute entrepreneur’: when a self-employed worker is confronted with circumstances preventing him from pursuing its activity, he can be replaced by another independent from the register of substitute entrepreneurs

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Overall assessment

Within the last couple of years, to which extent has the public and policy discussion been more focused on the following different types of entrepreneurship compared to the business policy/entrepreneurship debate in general?

Table 7: Increased focus at the emerging forms of entrepreneurship?

Please list the main sources of information in the search for the above

Part II: Standardised structural data

Which standardised business statistics are available covering the different forms of entrepreneurship/business activities (explicitly or implicitly, i.e. also data that could be used to describe these forms of entrepreneurship without being published with this specific objective/heading)?

*INASTI: National Institute for the Social Security of the Self-employed (Institut national d'assurances sociales pour travailleurs indépendants/Rijksinstituut voor de Sociale Verzekeringen der Zelfstandigen, INASTI, RSVZ)

**INS: National Institute for Statistics (Institut national de statistique/ Nationaal Instituut voor de Statistiek, INS/NIS)

***TVA

Is it possible to crosstab or merge the demographic data identifying the individual persons running any of the five forms of entrepreneurships/business activities with the company data specified in question 9 in a common database for analytical purpose?

No

Is the data freely accessible or does it require registration, payment and/or a special effort to access the data? Please explain the accessibility for each of the forms of entrepreneurs/business activities and datasets referred to above.

Part III: Research

Please describe studies and research available nationally for each of the forms of entrepreneurs/business activities.

Van den broeck Marie, Institute for Labour Studies, Université Catholique de LouvainInstitute for Labour Studies, Université catholique de Louvain