Definition: people facing over-indebtedness or serious financial difficulties can turn to the legal procedure of collective debt settlement. Under this procedure, a debt mediator will establish a repayment plan for all outstanding debts and determine the amount necessary for the debtor to meet his or her current monthly expenses. This amount must be sufficient to enable him/her to live a decent life without falling below the level of the monthly 'social integration allowance'. In Belgium, the Central individual credit register (CCP), managed by the National Bank of Belgium, centralises data on the number of outstanding collective debt settlements. It uses information from labour courts and debt mediators, via the central file of seizure, delegation, assignment, collective debt settlement and protest notices. Collective debt settlement notices are automatically deleted from the CCP after the expiry of the applicable regulatory retention period. The indicator used here is expressed in thousands of persons and relate to the situation at the end of each year. Those data and the Eurostat population data that relate to the situation at the beginning of each following year are used to calculate the share of the population aged 18 and over that is in collective debt.

Goal: household over-indebtedness must be reduced.

The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015 include target 1.4: “By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance”.

The collective debt settlement procedure provides for a monthly amount necessary for the person concerned to meet regular expenses so that he or she can live a decent life without falling below the level of the 'social integration allowance'. Since the collective debt settlement procedure specifically targets people who may no longer be able to live a decent life as a result of over-indebtedness, it is considered that there is an implicit goal according to which the number of people in collective debt settlement must decrease, which is in line with the goal of the indicator Guaranteed minimum income beneficiaries.

International comparison: due to law differences, there are no harmonised data at EU level on this type of measure for over-indebted people.

UN indicator: the selected indicator does not correspond to any monitoring indicator for the SDGs but is related to target 1.4 since people are vulnerable after a debt recovery procedure and could face more difficulties to have access to some services and types of ownership.

Sources

• SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals: United Nations (2015), Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, document A/RES/70/1.

• Indicators: United Nations (2017), Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, document A/RES/71/313.

• UN Sustainable Development: https://sdgs.un.org/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

• UN Sustainable Development Goal indicators website: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

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