The N-VA wants to limit the personal staff of Brussels ex-ministers

Former Brussels ministers employ two personal assistants for five years. Today, the General Affairs and Finance Committee of the Brussels Parliament finally adopted a resolution to adapt that system. The N-VA group leader Cieltje Van Achter is pleased that Brussels has followed the Flemish example of 2015, but regrets the political party game that is being played. “Little is visible of the promised political renewal.”

Former Brussels ministers and secretaries of state are entitled to two personal assistants after their mandate expires and for a period of five years. In Brussels, the six former members of the government employ a total of ten employees. Guy Vanhengel (Open VLD) and Bianca Debaets (CD&V) each have two extra staff members on top of the staff members they are already entitled to in their current position as MPs. Over the entire term of office, this will cost the taxpayer about EUR 4.5 million.

Brussels majority submits a copy of the 2017 N-VA resolution

The Brussels opposition has been criticising this system for years. The N-VA had already submitted a proposal in 2017 to limit the number of employees of former ministers to bring it in line with the Flemish system introduced by the Bourgeois government in 2015. “For former ministers to maintain their own political staff for five years after their mandate is no longer of our time. Our proposal aims to limit this system to one employee for two years, and only for former ministers and former secretaries of state who are not MPs. The first time we submitted this resolution was in 2017. We submitted it again early last year. The majority has kept this off the agenda all this time. Now that it is finally on the agenda, the majority is submitting a copy of our proposal. All of this is so that they do not have to support a resolution by the opposition and take the credit themselves. At the beginning of 2020, the N-VA nevertheless invited all the political groups to co-sign the proposal and submit it together. At the time, there was hardly any support for this, and only Pepijn Kennis (Agora) agreed.”

Change is finally on the way

All in all, Cieltje Van Achter is delighted. “Aside from the political games, I am glad that change is finally on the way. If Brussels had introduced this system together with Flanders, millions of euros would have been saved, and our budget would have been slightly less in the red. It is clear that Groen, Open VLD and One.Brussels now also understand this and are jumping on this bandwagon of political renewal with us.”