- Daily & Weekly newsletters
- Buy & download The Bulletin
- Comment on our articles
Related articles
Recent
Popular
Controversy over N-VA politician's appointment to Centre for Equal Opportunities
Matthias Storme (N-VA) has been appointed as a member of the board of the new Interfederal Centre for Equal Opportunities. Opposition parties have questioned Storme’s suitability for the role, as he has in the past expressed opposition to anti-discrimination legislation, arguing that discrimination is “a fundamental freedom”.
Storme (pictured), who teaches law at the University of Leuven, replied that his role has only a limited impact on policy. The government of Flanders has pledged to review its role in the Interfederal Centre.
In related news, an alderman in Kraainem, just outside Brussels in Flemish Brabant, has been expelled from his party for stating that “the gas chambers never existed”. Thierry Van De Plas, a member of the French-language Christian democrats CDH, made the comment in 2013 on his Facebook page.
“The comment is clearly unacceptable,” said a party spokesperson. Van De Plas claims that he was unfairly sacked and that he is not anti-Semitic. “It was a private comment,” he said. “I made it in the heat of the moment.”
photo courtesy N-VA
Comments
Well, the Flemish nationalists already have the Interior, Defence and Finance. Someone will now be appointed to make sure the language laws are respected at meetings in the Communes à facilités. (I remember when the Flemish sent in the police to break up a Catholic mass being held in French in one of those communes).
So perhaps this NVA man was appointed to show they also have a sense of humour?
@ANON2 -- What is all this? Interior, defence, finance etc. are FEDERAL ; money (coming mainly from Flanders, NB) gets distributed equally between the North and the South of the country. – WWI & II are over, by the way, whatever the reference to various ‘National Fronts’ may be in your comment. As to “Catholic mass being interrupted" in the periphery of Brussels by those "Flemish” you seem to come down upon like a ton of bricks : that must have been quite a while ago; very few churchgoers these days… How come they did not say mass in standard Liturgy-Latin anyway? Might have been the right thing to do in the circumstances, with a sense of humour or without !!!