A new system of “unique book pricing” will come into effect in Brussels from April 5, the cabinet of the Minister of Culture in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, Alda Greoli (cdH), has confirmed.
The law implementing the new system will not demand that all books in Brussels be sold at the exact same price. Rather, it requires that each particular book has a single, unique price associated with it that must remain invariant across all of Belgium. (Similar laws are already operational in Flanders and Wallonia.)
According to Ms Greoli, the objectives of the measure are: the “democratisation” of the book as a means of encouraging reading; the elimination of the tax paid by consumers for the purchase of books published abroad; and the encouragement of fair competition between small booksellers, supermarkets and online sales companies.