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FPS Foreign Affairs' SOLVIT Centre is on hand every day to solve your problems with EU rights as quickly as possible.
As EU citizens, we enjoy countless benefits. We can travel freely, study freely, work freely, live freely, do business freely and much more besides within the entire territory of the EU. Still, problems can sometimes still arise in another EU country. Maybe your degree is not recognised after all, or you wish to sell products that are nevertheless rejected. Maybe your pension is no longer being paid, even though you worked in that country for years, or a hospital still charges you costs that you shouldn't have to pay. The examples are endless.
Despite the clarity of EU regulations, it occasionally happens that national authorities do not apply EU rules correctly. Sometimes, national regulations may even conflict with the EU rules. To address these problems, the EU created SOLVIT in 2002: a free online service that can help you resolve these types of complaints. Provided, however, that you have not (yet) submitted the case to a court.
There is a SOLVIT Centre in every EU Member State, as well as in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. The Belgian SOLVIT Centre forms part of the FPS Foreign Affairs. To ensure your case is processed without prejudice, two SOLVIT Centres are always involved. SOLVIT will make every effort to solve your problem within 10 weeks.
The procedure is broadly as follows:
- You fill out the online form.
- Your home centre – in Belgium if you are Belgian – will check to see if your case is eligible.
- If your case qualifies, it will be forwarded to the SOLVIT Centre in the country where the problem has arisen.
- The second SOLVIT Centre will work with the responsible department of the other country to solve the problem.
- Your home centre will notify you of the results.
Every year, the Belgian SOLVIT Centre receives around 300 complaints. Last year there were 276 and 85% of those were solved.
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