Good afternoon!
One of the articles I want to draw your attention to today concerns Bart De Wever. It's well known that Mr De Wever is in favour of greater autonomy for Flanders. He's been very outspoken on the matter in the past, and was again this week in the media. The issue now is though, of course, is that he's the Prime Minister.
In an interview with Dutch radio, Prime Minister De Wever said he still supports the idea of a reunification of Belgium and the Netherlands. To many, this in itself is slightly odd – to have the Prime Minister of a country essentially advocating carving off bits of neighbouring countries to make a bigger one, radically affecting your own to boot. To me, what's even more absurd is that he thought he could say this in a "personal capacity" rather than as Prime Minister, because as he admits, he wouldn't be able to say it as the leader of the country. Sorry? Come again?
This phenomenon is not uncommon in Belgium, it seems. Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot (Les Engagés) has been at it recently as well, on an extremely touchy subject. Surely if you are a cabinet minister, nothing you say publicly about politics or policy is "in a personal capacity", especially if you then go on to admit you wouldn't be able to say it in your official capacity. It's not like we are talking about his favourite pizza topping here. Even more baffling is that this seems to go almost unmentioned by much of the media.
Why does this matter, you may ask? In my opinion, it matters because we need to understand what our leaders and politicians stand for. Can we trust them to do what they say, or are they forgoing principles that may have encouraged us to vote for them in the first place? Are they genuine? Do they have hidden agendas? Are you in danger of alienating large sections of your society who might have been willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and get behind you for the greater good of the country? I would argue you are.
Of course, we all should understand the principle of cabinet government and collective responsibility, where everyone is expected to sign up to the group decision in government and if you can't live with that, you resign.
What De Wever and others are doing here is effectively the opposite of that. Of course, in coalitions things are more complicated, and in Belgian coalitions even more so. But I am not sure we should accept as a principle the concept that those in power should be able to choose what public political statements are "private" and which are "official" – surely if you are a public figure, anything you say in public should be taken as your official view, and you should stand by it? Otherwise, don't say it in public, especially to the media.
By the way... did you know that Bart De Wever's middle names are Albert Liliane? No, I thought not.
Belgium in Brief is a free daily roundup of the top stories to get you through your coffee break conversations. To receive it straight to your inbox every day, sign up below:
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