Starting from 1 September 2019, this provision allows the payment of allowances to small companies with fewer than ten employees (including merchants and self-employed individuals), in order to compensate for the impact of works carried out on public roads on their activity.
Any company (e.g. catering sector, merchants) with fewer than ten employees, including self-employed individuals, whose activity requires contact with customers.
The compensatory allowance amounts to €100 multiplied by the number of days on which the company’s activity is adversely affected by the works. This compensation is capped at a maximum amount of €7,000 per year, which corresponds to 70 days of disruption.
The application for the compensatory allowance is submitted via the “WALLINCO” mobile application on a smartphone.
The applicant installs the mobile application on their smartphone from the App Store (for iPhone users) or from the Google Play Store (for Android smartphones). The application will only be available to iPhone users starting from the second half of September.
When starting the application process, the applicant is asked to log in using the “itsme” system.
Various details must then be provided in order to obtain the compensatory allowance (in particular, a photo of the announcement of the works and at least three photos of the disruption, which have been taken on different days over a period of five consecutive days).
Within thirty days of the submission of the application, the administration sends its decision regarding the compensatory advance, which is calculated on the basis of 20 days, via the application.
Once the disruption is over, a decision regarding the final balance of the compensation is sent to the company via the application. The final photo of the disruption serves as proof of the end date when calculating the number of days for the compensation.
During the analysis of your request by the administration, you will be asked to provide a banking identity statement.
You can receive a compensatory allowance if your business is adversely affected by works on public roads for a minimum of 20 consecutive days.
Works adversely affect the activity of a business if:
1- pedestrian access to the site is significantly disrupted; or
2- the company’s private parking spaces, or parking areas in the immediate vicinity that are usually used by customers, are not accessible,
Companies that are subject to bankruptcy, dissolution or liquidation may not benefit from a compensatory allowance.
The granting of the maximum allowance must not exceed the limits that have been determined in accordance with the cumulation rules, as established in Commission Regulation (EU) No 1407/2013 of 18 December 2013 on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to de minimis aid.