At the first of four congresses organised by his liberal Open VLD party in Ghent, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo warned that democracy, as we know it today, is under attack.
People such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and French far-right Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen show "that our Western values and our democracy have never been acquired," De Croo said.
"The most important lesson to take away from these conferences is this: freedom is not something abstract. It is not just something of and for ourselves," he said. "We are only truly free when we can build something together. If we are also free together."
The democratic model is not only rejected in China and Russia, but "in Europe, too, there are those who want to install illiberal democracy," De Croo said. "Some come out openly for it, others inject it as a sneaking poison into our society. You see it every day on social media."
Related News
- 'We will defend ourselves': De Croo visits Belgian troops in Romania
- 'I lost my country': Anastasia left Russia after Ukraine invasion
- Russia announces plans to fully control Donbas and southern Ukraine
However, he does not have to look far to find examples of those people, he said. "In our parliament too, there are extremist parties that, even after Bucha and Mariupol, still speak with a double tongue. When we were busy with the safety of our country and our military, they were cleaning up their Facebook pages so that there would not be a photo with Putin or his clique on it."
De Croo stressed that the generations before us have "fought far too long and far too hard for our democracy" to now allow it to be destroyed by "the useful idiots" that Vladimir Putin has managed to manipulate.
"All our basic democratic values are far too precious to be surrendered just like that. We will not let anyone take them away from us," he said. "Not by radical Islamists with their hate speech. And not by the extreme right with their lies and cuddling with Putin."
Democratic freedom will be at stake in the coming months and years, De Croo said, and we will have to "mobilise all democratic forces to defend our freedom, prosperity and security, including in our country."
