Spanish wine tasting in Brussels

On October 21st, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg organised, together with its member company From de Roots, a tasting of Spanish wines.

During the tasting, attendees had the opportunity to learn more about the wine production in La Rioja and Catalonia, and enjoy five different wines from both regions: from more traditional ones to biodynamic or natural wines.

Jaume Puigdefabregas and Pedro Fecha not only offered a technical analysis of the wines, but also encouraged the audience to share their opinions, ideas and tastes. They were able to adapt the presentation to the different levels of knowledge of the attendees, allowing both beginners and experts to broaden their knowledge and taste for Spanish wine.

Additionally, the attendees were offered a special food paring for the tasting: high quality Spanish ham, pork loin, cheese, or olives that enhanced the taste of the different wines.

Finally, the participants received a glass of cava as a gift from the organisers, and a glass of wine as a souvenir of their participation.

Introduction to the new European funding program in digitalisation – Good Practices in Spain and in Belgium

On September 22nd, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg organised the conference “Introduction to the new European funding program in digitalisation – Good Practices in Spain and in Belgium”, in collaboration with BECI (Chambre de Commerce et Union des Enterprises de Bruxelles) and EEN (Enterprise Europe Network). The event was attended by companies specialised in EU-funded digitisation projects as well as public bodies and regional delegations.

The face-to-face event, which took place at the Welkin & Meraki coworking space in Brussels, started with the welcome words from the Secretary General of the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg, Marta González, and the Internationalisation Director of BECI, Jean-Philippe Mergen.

The first speaker was Anne-Marie Sassen, Head of Unit at DG CONNECT. During her speech, she presented the objectives and structure of the Digital Europe Programme, highlighting the importance of all companies in the European Union adapting to technological transformation to cope with the current economic situation and to be globally competitive.

Subsequently, Susana Garayoa, Senior Consultant at Zabala Innovation Consulting, explained how this Spanish consultancy firm supports companies in their digitalisation process and in their participation in European funding projects. She took the opportunity to present the new smart platform Kaila, which allows users to search for information on European funding opportunities for digitisation projects, among other things.

Later, Marion Perrin and Benjamin Carnec – both from hub.brussels – took part as national contact points. They presented, on the one hand, the service they offer through their organisations to local participants of the Horizon Europe programme, one of the European Union’s main programmes for research and innovation. Additionally, they presented the Enterprise Europe Network, a global support network for small and medium-sized enterprises with international ambitions, thanks to the one they help these companies to introduce their innovations in new markets.

Then, María Aguilar de Tena, Solutions Project Leader at everis, presented the strategy of this technology consultancy firm within the framework of the programme and shared how they are supporting the European Commission in its development.

To conclude the event, Noelia Sánchez, Project Manager at the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg, presented to the attendees the MobiliseSME programme, co-financed by the European Commission and coordinated by the Chamber itself. This pilot mobility programme for the staff of European SMEs supports the internationalisation of Belgian and Spanish companies in the digital sector through the development of mutual beneficial transnational collaborations.

Event co-organized by:

                                                         

Sponsored by:

In collaboration with
           

Digital ICT Week

The Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce and its Enterprise Europe Network, together with Farvest Group, will organise the 2nd edition of the Digital ICT Week that will take place on 13 – 17 September 2021. The Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg will once again be an official partner of this event.

The Digital ICT Week, built around the ICT Spring tech conference in Luxembourg, will encompass a rich and varied programme to keep its promise to showcase the best tech trends and provide growth opportunities for start-ups and SMEs through its highlight events, such as

  • the Digital Summit
  • the virtual tech visits
  • the International Business Meetings by b2fair
  • and much more…

To register and find more information on the event, kindly consult the website HERE.

This year, the event will be hybrid, offering the possibility to interested companies to participate virtually or physically in the event. Startups interested to participate as exhibitor in the ICT Spring can benefit from a preferential rate of 300 EUR. This offer includes:The participation in the DIGITAL ICT Week is free of charge.

  • The logo or the name of each startup of all communication supports
  • Logo link of the company on the ICT Spring website
  • 4m² stand in the startup’s village – Equipment, including a table and two chairs
  • 2 tickets for the startup team
  • Participation in the International matchmaking meetings by b2fair

In case of interest, please contact us: luxemburgo@e-camara.com

Webinar on “Teleworking from Spain” 

On May 19th, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg organized a webinar on “Teleworking from Spain” in collaboration with its member companies BakerTilly, Pro-Pay and Racine, with the participation of Bert Dehandschutter, partner of the law firm Racine, An De Wever, legal advisor and Inge Janssens, legal and immigration director, both from Pro-Pay N.V. and Dany De Decker, Tax Partner of Bakertilly Belgium.

Due to COVID-19 health crisis that forces employees to telework from home, as well as the context of digitalization in which we find ourselves and which makes it possible to work from anywhere with a simple internet connection, many employees choose to move their office abroad either for a short or long period of time. Spain continues to be one of the preferred destinations in this regard.

During the webinar, the main administrative issues that may arise when employees who normally work in Belgium decide to go temporarily to Spain to work from there were addressed, focusing on issues related to social security, labor law and tax consequences.

Among the doubts clarified in the webinar, there are issues related to tax legislation in the case of teleworking from Spain with a Belgian labor contract or issues affecting self-employers working for companies present in a country other than their own.

From the Chamber, we would like to thank the speakers for their interventions and all the attendees for their presence.

In collaboration with:  

                

The Chamber presented Young Entrepreneurs’ fuck up stories: Partners and partnerships at StartIt KBC 

On May 12th, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg organised the online presentation “Young Entrepreneurs’ fuck up stories: Partners and partnerships” together with the start-ups’ incubator Start it @KBC, in the framework of the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (EYE), in collaboration with the member company Vision Communication Consultancy. 

The “Young Entrepreneurs’ fuck up stories” presentation focused on the fact that starting as an entrepreneur is not always easy, highlighting that the most important thing is to learn from failure. In this case, in “Partners & Partnerships: love me or leave me”, the speaker was Ramon Villa, founder of the member company Vision Communication Consultancy. Villa shared his experience and the lessons learned from his mistakes as a starting entrepreneur as well as advising the participants on how to build their first business partnerships. 

Addionally, during this presentation, the participants discovered more information about the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme, which aims to connect entrepreneurs from all over Europe and promote the exchange of experiences between them. The participants not only had the opportunity to know more about the requirements to participate in the programme as New Entrepreneur (NE) and Host Entrepreneur (HE) but also about the support offered by the Chamber to take part in the programme and carry out an exchange. 

The Chamber thanks Ramon Villa and Start It KBC for their collaboration and hopes that many start-ups can benefit from this initiative.  

Webinar on “Changes that may affect your HR management”

Last Tuesday 27th April, the Official Spanish Chamber in Belgium and Luxembourg organised a webinar on “Changes that may affect HR management” in collaboration with its member company SD Worx.
During this webinar, Valérie t’Serstevens, legal consultant in national and international law and Hugues Thibaut, public affairs consultant, both from SD Worx, reported on recent changes that may affect the human resources management of companies.

Among other issues, topics such as measures related to Covid and vaccinations, support for remote working, the possibility of hiring a British employee with Brexit or whether the reduction in social contributions for the first six employees hired still applies.

From the  Chamber, we would like to warmly thank Valérie t’Serstevens and Hugues Thibaut for their participation, our member company for SD Worx their collaboration in organizing this event and all the attendees for their presence.

Event sponsored by:

Webinar: “Covid-19 response: examples of solutions in Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain”

Last Thursday 22nd of April, the Cultural and Scientific Department of the Spanish Embassy in Belgium and the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg, in collaboration with the Spanish Embassy in Luxembourg, the Center for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI), the Spanish Office for Science and Technology (SOST-CDTI) and the Superior Council for Scientific Research’ (CSIC) Delegation to the European Union, organized the webinar “Response to COVID-19: solutions’ examples in Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain”. It consisted in a digital, special edition of the “Los Mediodias de la Embajada” and the fourth edition of the cycle Spain Means Innovation, a Chamber’ initiative to boost Spanish companies’ commercial and business interests at a local level in Belgium and Luxembourg.

During the webinar, different good practice examples were shown on the development of innovative technologies and solutions which are being carried out in order to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg, and both synergies and connections that can be established between the three countries were highlighted.

The webinar was inaugurated with welcoming words from H.E Ms. Beatriz Larrotcha Palma, Ambassador of Spain to the Kingdom of Belgium, who highlighted the importance of collaboration between countries in order to fight the pandemic, as well as thanking speakers and assistants for their presence. Boudewijn Catry, researcher at the Belgian public health and epidemiological center Sciensano spoke after her, and explained the Covid-19 epidemiological information’ management system launched by Belgium which has been identified by the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) as one of the leading for epidemiological monitoring in Europe.

Following him, Marina Martinez, H2020 Programme Officer at the CDTI-SOST office intervened and threshed the different innovation programs recently launched by the EU to fight the pandemic, as well as highlighting the important Spanish participation in the Horizon 2020 program in fields such as nanotechnology. After this, S.E. Sr. Bernardo de Sicart Escoda, Spanish Ambassador in the Great Duchy of Luxembourg, spoke and presented the important work of Spanish institutions and associations in Luxembourg to generate synergies between the two countries in all fields, including health.

After the firsts interventions the board of experts started, moderated by Sergi Farré, Cultural and Scientific Advisor of the Spanish Embassy in Belgium. Dr. Gérard Schockmel, specialist physician in infectious diseases at the Robert Schuman Luxembourg Hospital began by detailing the pandemic management in Luxembourg and current trends.

On the other hand, Adolfo Fernández, director, and Belén Cabal, main researcher, both of the center for nanomaterials and nanotechnology research CINN-CSIC-UO-PA, presented the innovative materials recently developed and its potential applications against Covid. José Maria Lagarón, of the IATA-CSIC research center, presented the development of a mask based on own nanotechnology as an example of rapid development of solutions against Covid given the scarcity of masks in the initial stages of the pandemic. Last, David Gering, Director of Communications at the Belgian pharmaceutical industry association (Pharma.be) explained the enormous importance of Belgium in the industry’s European network as well as of its impact on the Belgian economy.

During the question time, assistants to the event had the chance to express their doubts and comments to the speakers, such as the measures launched in Luxembourg, vaccination strategies or crisis management.

From the Official Spanish Commerce Chamber in Belgium and Luxembourg we would like to warmly thank all speakers for their excellent presentation, as well as to all participants for their presence.

Webinar on “Pension & inheritance: 2 problems, 1 solution!”

On March 23rd, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg organised a webinar on “Pension & inheritance: 2 problems, 1 solution!” in collaboration with its member company Pareto. The conference was held by Gauthier Remaekers, Senior financial planner at Pareto.

Although inheritance & succession law are very complex and turn even more complicated when moving in transnational contexts, the reality is that the only way to protect familiar or personal wealth when facing retirement or inheritance is to draft a plan paying attention to different aspects. In this planification, the state pension after retirement should only cover around 30% on the annual income after retirement and corresponds to the “first pillar” of the plan. The pension systems differ importantly between countries and has to be taken into account, for example, in Belgium there is “pay as you go” system. The different pillars corresponding to savings and/or pensions fund are also critical in the planification and taxation has to be always kept in mind under Belgian law as taxes are higher than in other countries.

Taxation is nevertheless present in all phases of any wealth planning activity and, of course, especially in inheritance matters. The taxes paid in the revenues, indirect taxes are followed by an inheritance taxation that varies between countries and even regions within countries, for example in Belgium. Therefore, planification of wealth for inheritance is critical to smartly minimize the impact of this taxations. The order of inheritance and the number of legal heirs were also featured in the webinar to explain the different schemes or formulas that an inheritance can take in real life. For this retirement planning, the figure of an adviser can make the difference and all experts agree on the fact that the plan should be built in an inverted pyramid scheme featuring the different components of wealth (savings, real state, etc.) according to the foreseen economical needs.

Participants were able to ask questions to the speaker during the Q&A session. Thus, topics such as retirement in cross-countries context and regional taxes disparities were discussed.

From the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce we thank Pareto and Gauthier Remaekers for their excellent presentation as well as to all attendees for their present.

 

In collaboration with:

Webinar on “Boost your business in the EU: internationalization and capacity building for SMEs”

On March 10th, the  Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg and the  Fundación Equipo Humano organized in the frame of the launch event of the  MobiliseSME Programme, the webinar called “Boost your business in the EU: internationalization and capacity building for SMEs”.  

 The online event was welcomed by Juan Rodríguez-Villa Matons, President of the Chamber.  

He expressed the aim of the association to continue supporting entrepreneurship and SMEs through EU initiatives such as the MobiliseSME programme, where the Chamber is the coordinator of the project, and to join forces to face the current challenges and those that are yet to come.   

Denis Genton, Head of Unit of DG EMPL, presented the efforts, policies and legal instruments of the European Commission to maintain free mobility of workers in the Single Market. He explained the European Job Mobility Portal EURES and ended his intervention stressing the importance of the MobiliseSME programme to contribute to upgrade skills of European workers through free labor mobility during the recovery process post COVID-19.  

Crispin Waymouth, Deputy Head of Unit DG GROW, highlighted the three main objectives of the European Commission for SMEs: sustainability and the green economy, digitalization, and resilience. He mentioned Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) as a contact point for SMEs with experienced business consultants specialized in internationalization and presented the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) as one of the European projects to foster international cooperation among European entrepreneurs. The Chamber is also taking part in this programme as intermediate organization for Belgium and Luxembourg.  

During the panel discussion, Beatriz Rios, EU reporter, mediated the discussion and directed the attendees’ questions to the panelists.  

Jose Enrique Val, EU Project Manager and co-cordinator of the MobiliseSME programme at Fundación Equipo Humano, talked about the objectives of this European programme, being the main one to promote SMEs internationalization and to boost their capacity building, staff skills and knowledge. Participating SMEs can enjoy multiple benefits, such as international expansion, creation of new products or services, market research and wide their networks abroad, between others.  

Then, Noelia Sánchez, Project manager and coordinator of the MobiliseSME programme from the Chamber, explained the registration process for companies that want to participate in this pilot project, as well as the practical and financial support provided by the organizations that act as local contact points of the MobiliseSME programme.  

Lastly, attendees could enjoy the testimonials of the two first SMEs that have participated in the MobiliseSME programme. Marta Templado, CEO of Turiart, and Claudio Cristofori, CEO of J&K Viaggi, explained how they found in the MobiliseSME programme the perfect opportunity to further expand their business while their companies in the tourism sector had been affected by the COVID-19 crisis.  

During the Q&A session, assistants had the opportunity to ask further questions regarding the MobiliseSME programme, with topics such as the future and scope of the MobiliseSME project to help European SMEs with their main challenges and barriers, tackling the current COVID-19 situation.  

After the webinar, a 1:1 meeting session took place for those participants interested in having tailored meetings with MobiliseSME local contact points to further information about the programme. 

From the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg, we would like to thank Denis Genton, Crispin Waymouth, Marta Templado, Claudio Cristofori, Fundación Equipo Humano, and all the attendees for their participation. 

The forums “StartCraft, Co-innovating for the future of crafts” gathered testimonials and advice from artisans to achieve successful crafts business.

On January 18th, 20th and 25th, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg organized the professional networking forums StartCraft, Co-innovating for the future of crafts, in the framework of the European project StartCraft, with the presence and participation of renowned artists and craftsmen from Belgium and Luxembourg, specialized in a wide range of sectors.

StartCraft is a project funded by the European Erasmus+ programme, whose main objective is to develop and offer training and practical education in entrepreneurship and business management for artisan entrepreneurs. For this reason, and in order to ensure that these online training courses are adapted to the real-life challenges faced by artisans and craftworkers, the project launched these meetings with the collaboration and intervention of craft professionals.

During these sessions, the participants were able to learn more about the project in detail, as well as to put forward the difficulties they had to face when starting their own business. They also exchanged views with StartCraft managers on training, tax issues, customer acquisition methods and how Covid has affected them.

The Chamber thanks all participants for their testimonials and advice.

Find out more about the program here.