Far-right party Vlaams Belang (VB) has put the Belgian Senate up for sale on a second-hand website claiming the parliamentary chamber is useless and superfluous.
"We will put the Senate up for sale on 2dehands.be and we hope that the potential buyer will be able to put this beautiful building at the service of the population in a more useful way," Guy D'haeseleer, VB leader in the Senate, said in an online ad.
The listing on the second-hand website has been since removed, but the far-right party's asking price was of €1.
According to the listing, the low price tag was in because the party would leave it to the buyer to "remove any politicians or chairmen present who pretend to be more important than their tasks entail," Het Nieuwsblad reports.
D'haeseleer said that the upper chamber of the federal parliament had stopped being useful and had become a "completely superfluous assembly."
Claiming that the Senate cost taxpayers some €40 million a year, D'haeseleer pointed out it was "high time" to get rid of it at a time of looming financial trouble for Belgium, arguing that doing so would "help the credibility of politics."
In the now-deleted listing, the VB pointed out that the Senate is home to many works of art donated over the years by the museums, making it a "great acquisition opportunity for collectors."
The snarky ad drew energised responses from supporters on social media, with many agreeing with the party's criticism that the Senate was "pure taxpayer money waste" and repudiating the fact that Belgium had seven governments.
Gabriela Galindo
The Brussels Times
