Social services workers are protesting against a proposal to make administrative services fully available online – Politico.
Bernard Clerfayt, Minister for Digital Transition of the Brussels Region, put forward a proposal called Digital Brussels to make administrative services fully available online. However, the initiative was criticised by trade associations, social services and the trade union sector.
Last week, some 400 people demonstrated in Brussels for the fifth time this year with slogans such as “Stop the digital,” “People, not machines” and “We are not robots.”
Switching public services online could exacerbate the digital gap and increase social inequality, protesters argue. They cite the complication of life for those who do not own a computer or do not know how to use the Internet as their main argument.
Anne Coppieters, CEO of Lire et Écrire (Read and Write), an organisation that helps people with literacy difficulties, states that “more than 40 percent of adults in Brussels do not have the digital skills that would allow them to access online services.”
We are not against digitization, but you have to keep the physical counters and telephone lines.
However, a spokesperson for Bernard Clerfayt’s administration, Pauline Lorbat, denied the allegations.
“Digital Brussels means two things: Firstly, that everything you would need to do at the municipality you can do online — for example, change your address. Second, the text obliges services to provide an alternative to the digital.”
Statistics show that Brussels offers around 84 per cent of administrative procedures online, compared to an EU average of 75 per cent. Céline Nieuwenhuys stated that “social workers are overwhelmed by questions from citizens” after the Covid-19 pandemic.
The bill, approved by the Brussels local government at the end of September, will be sent to the Brussels Parliament by the end of 2023, but the organisations plan to continue the protest.
