Belgium to allow longer shopping hours and scrap compulsory closure day

Belgian shops will be allowed to remain open until 21.00 and will no longer be required to have at least one day a week in which they are closed and workers are guaranteed a rest.

The rollback of these worker protections is part of the new reforms under prime minister Bart De Wever (NVA) and the new federal government.

The measure is part of a series of reforms aimed, according to the federal government, at "flexibilising" and "modernising" the world of work. Only retail businesses are affected by the measure.

Comeos, the federation representing the retail sector, supports the measure while small independent retailers are less enthusiastic.

In a note obtained by RTBF, Belgium’s minister for small businesses, the self-employed and SMEs, Eléonore Simonet, describes her draft bill as modernising "a legislative framework that is no longer adapted to the economic realities that have changed considerably over the past 20 years".

Existing legislation requires Belgian stores to be closed between 20.00 and 5.00, except on Fridays when a 21.00 closure is permitted. In most cases, they must also close at least one day a week - although some exceptions have applied for newsagents, tobacco and lottery retailers.

The new law, Simonet said, "is no longer in line with the expectations of consumers and retailers, nor does it take into account the evolution of online commerce. Today, online retailers enjoy much greater flexibility than physical shops, which creates distortions of competition".

The Shopera retailers’ association called the abolishing of the guaranteed day off and extension of permissible hours of operation “very good news for retailers in the centre of Brussels”, but the Neutral Union of Independent Traders (SNI) said that the change would mainly benefit large chains that have the means to implement such a process.

Small retailers, on the other hand, will be forced to follow suit in order to remain competitive, but will not find it easy to implement the measure in practice.

“In many cases, longer opening hours will lead to an unsustainable increase in the workload for the entrepreneur and their family,” SNI spokesperson Cedric Tack said, adding that the sector is already facing a shortage of staff.

“The work-life balance will be completely lost.”

SNI also believes that the new measure will not generate additional revenue for retailers, but Shopera’s Quintin Huet called it a necessary modernisation.

“The internet never closes: you can always order from Amazon,” Huet said.

“In many capitals, especially in Southern Europe, it's quite normal for shops to stay open late. Think of Italy or Spain, where people take a break in the afternoon but reopen in the evening until 21.00.”

The law also aims to tackle the proliferation of shops declaring themselves as primarily newsagents to stay open longer and gain an advantage over competitors.