Applying for approval or renewing approval, or associated subsidies, or submitting a business report as an “integration company”

Summary In detail Forms Contact

Summary

Approval as an “integration company” is granted by Wallonia to a limited company (SA), a limited-liability cooperative company (SCRL) or an economic interest group (GIE) that is approved as a “social economy initiative”.

Approval as an “integration company” aims to encourage the sustainable integration and quality of disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged workers, as defined in the “ADVANTAGES” paragraph. Obtaining this approval entitles the recipient to subsidies, in order to encourage the employment of these individuals, their training and their socio-professional development under the best possible conditions.

Key points

We draw your attention to the fact that:

Obtaining approval as a “social economy initiative” is a prerequisite for obtaining approval as an “integration company”
Approval as an “integration company” cannot be combined with approval for a specialised employment agency or approval as an equivalent organisation in the German-speaking Community or in the Flemish Community.
The integration company submits a business report to the administration for each year, no later than 15 July of the following year.
Subsidies cannot be paid to the company in the event of bankruptcy, dissolution or voluntary or compulsory liquidation of the approved integration company.
If the criteria for obtaining the subsidies are not satisfied, the Government may suspend all or part of the subsidies until the approved integration company gets things in order.

In detail

Target audience – details

The following are eligible for approval as an "integration company”:

Limited-liability cooperative companies (SCRL) with a social purpose
Economic interest groups with a social purpose
Limited companies with a public-service vocation, that is, companies with statuses in line with Article 661 of the Companies Code.

Conditions

You can benefit from approval as an "integration company” if:

you have been approved as a "social economy initiative”

You are a legal entity, registered with the BCE or in the Brussels-Capital Region or the Flemish Region, and are incorporated in one of the following forms:
- Limited companies with a social purpose
- Limited-liability cooperative companies (SCRL) with a social purpose
- Economic interest groups with a social purpose

Your organisation produces goods or services and supports an economic project with a social purpose, in particular, through the sustainable integration and quality of disadvantaged or severely disadvantages workers.
- A disadvantaged worker is a worker who does not have a diploma for higher secondary education or equivalent at the time they are hired and who is registered as an unemployed job-seeker,
- They must also satisfy at least one of the following criteria:
  - They receive unemployment, integration, social integration or social aid benefits, or has not received any income for at least six months.
  - They are aged between 18 and 24
  - They are over 50 years of age
  - They are the head of a single-parent family
  - They have been offered a job in a sector where the gender imbalance is at least 25% greater than the average gender imbalance across all economic activities and are a member of the under-represented gender
  - They are disabled and are entitled to training or employment assistance granted by the Walloon Agency for the Integration of Disabled Individuals
  - They are a member of an ethnic minority of a Member State of the European Community and need to improve their command of the language in order to find stable employment
- A severely disadvantaged worker is a worker who, before they are initially hired by an approved company:
  - does not hold a diploma for higher secondary education or equivalent
  - is registered as an unemployed job-seeker
  - receives unemployment, integration, social integration or social aid benefits, or has not received any income for at least 24 months.

You must demonstrate your company’s economic viability

If you are an SCRL, you have a minimum fixed portion of share capital equalling €18,550

Members of the board of directors are not the spouses of other members of the board and have no family relationship (up to the 2nd degree). The board of directors must comprise a minimum of 5 people.

You agree that, within four years of obtaining the approval, at least 50% of your workforce will comprise disadvantaged, severely disadvantaged or unqualified workers.

You are not part of an excluded sector under the regulation (link to Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014 of 17 June 2014 declaring certain categories of aid compatible with the internal market in application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty)

Within six months of being approved, you will conclude an agreement with the FOREM and the Arbeitsamt der DG for the design and implementation of the training and professional-integration plan for disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged workers. This agreement will be subject to evaluation when the approval is renewed.

Benefits

The Government may grant companies that have been approved as as “integration company”:

a subsidy to employ disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged workers
- You can apply for a subsidy with a maximum amount of €18,000 to employ a disadvantaged worker on a full-time basis, and a maximum of €36,000 to employ a severely disadvantaged worker on a full-time basis. The amount of aid granted may not exceed 50% of the cost of wages over a 12-month period, from the date on which the disadvantaged worker is employed and over a 24-month period from the date on which a severely disadvantaged employee is employed.

a subsidy to implement a general economic interest service (SIEG)
- You can apply to receive a maximum subsidy of €100,000 per year of approval. The amount of this subsidy is proportional to the number of disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged workers that are employed by the integration company. This subsidy is intended to cover costs related to hiring a social assistant or social assistants for these workers within these companies.
- Please note: to benefit from this subsidy, the integration company must prove that the subsidy complies with the provisions of the de minimis regulation for SIEGs. (Link to the regulation: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:114:0008:0013:FR:PDF

a subsidy for implementing the principles of the social economy
- You can apply to receive a maximum subsidy of €30,000 per year of approval. This subsidy is intended to encourage the implementation of the principles of the social economy within integration companies.
- More specifically, this subsidy is intended to encourage projects that are aimed at disadvantaged and severely disadvantaged workers. This subsidy is granted based on the development of the workforce, the profit-allocation policy and the establishment of a participatory process within integration companies, and is specifically aimed at disadvantaged and severely disadvantaged workers.

Approval as an “integration company” also allows you to obtain the SINE employer certificate and the social economy certificate, which entitles you to the increased subsidies outlined in Article 60.

Approval as an “integration company” is granted for a period of two years. It may be renewed for a period of four years, before being renewed for an unlimited period.

When a company no longer satisfies one of the criteria for approval that have been outlined above, the approval may be suspended or withdrawn. Loss of the approval may require reimbursement of the subsidies you have received.

As an integration company, you can obtain a subsidy if you satisfy the following criteria:
- you have been approved as an "integration company”
- the disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged worker who has been employed with the subsidy is an additional worker
- your company is not experiencing financial difficulties
- The employment of a disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged worker with a temporary contract gives rise to a permanent contract within six months of the date on which they were hired
- Disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged workers must be employed on a part-time basis at a minimum.

Procedure

The application process:

Within three and a half months of receiving the complete file, you will receive the Minister’s decision by registered letter.

Please note: in the case of an application for approval or renewal of your approval as an “integration company”, the Committee issues an opinion on the file before the decision issued by the Minister. The Minister may request additional information and ask for a hearing. In this case, you will receive an invitation 15 working days before the hearing date. You will then receive the Minister’s decision within 60 calendar days of the hearing.

The approval-renewal date is calculated based on the date on which approval was obtained.

Any individual or legal entity, who believes that a Walloon administrative authority or the French Community of Belgium has not acted in accordance with their public-service obligations in relation to a case involving them, may submit an individual claim, in writing or in person, to the Ombudsmen of Wallonia and the French Community of Belgium.

This claim can be submitted in writing to the following address:

Médiateur de la Wallonie et de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles

Rue Lucien Namèche, n°54

B-5000 Namur

Validation of the file:

To obtain approval as an "integration company" or to renew this approval, you must complete the online form, which is available via “My Space”.

The user submits their application for approval as a social economy initiative via “My Space”. The form is signed electronically. In light of this, “My Space” is linked to the ID card of the person who signs the form.

There are no fees associated with this procedure.

The only language that can be used for this process is French.

Supporting evidence must be attached directly to the electronic form. This is the information that must be provided when applying for approval or renewing your approval:

Application for approval/renewal of approval as an integration company: information/documents to be provided
Information to be provided	Document required	Comments
Company number + name
Legal form + NACE codes
Company type (A, B or C)	For a type-A company (= SME): provide the SME test.	link to the test: http://testpme.wallonie.be/
Address of the registered office (+ mailing address and project address, if these are different)
Details of the contact person (surname, first name, phone number, email, role)
Use of a consultancy agency?	If yes: provide the consultancy agency’s report which demonstrates the relevance of the activity and its viability	If no: N/A
Company manager: surname, first name, number of hours worked per week, date on which they were hired	If both a managing director and a company manager are present: distribution of tasks between them (document is provided in the form).
Managerial staff: surname, first name, role, RN
Number of unqualified workers (already employed + expected number after one year of approval): Art. 60 Section 7, SINE, others, total. + expected work schedule (hours/week)
Description of the integration project	Document to be attached; available during completion (see template attached).	Document must only be provided for an initial approval application, not for renewal.
Agreement concluded with the Forem (or acknowledgement of an appointment request)	Document to be provided by the company.	Attach the document provided by the Forem. When renewing your approval: provide the evaluation of this agreement.
Three-year budget forecasts	Document to be attached; template is found in the form (available during completion).	Document must only be provided for an initial approval application, not for renewal.
Extract from the central police records dated within the last six months for all administrators, managers, agents or other individuals who are authorised to act on behalf of the company	Documents to be provided by the company (during approval and renewals). Note: these documents must not be sent to COMES; please remove them from the ZIP file that is sent to COMES.
CV of the manager	Document to be provided by the company.
CVs of members of the managerial staff.	Document to be provided by the company.
Sworn statement	Provided during completion.

Within 15 calendar days of the application for approval or renewal being sent, you will receive either:

confirmation of receipt, specifying that the file is complete, where applicable notification of the documents that are missing from the file and an invitation to complete the file within 15 calendar days of receiving this notification. This period may be extended once, up to a maximum of 30 calendar days, upon request and when approved by the administration. If the file is incomplete once this deadline has passed, it is rejected.

Legal references