2023-09-26 06:28:00
This Tuesday morning, Maxime Binet received Egbert Lachaert, MP and former president of Open VLD, in the show “Café sansfilter” during the morning show on LN 24 and LN Radio.
The former party president has emerged from his media silence since the election of his successor at the head of the Open VLD. He first mentions the polls which give only 8% of voting intentions to the Flemish liberals. “The polls are worrying but they are still just polls. On the Dutch-speaking side, the democratic parties are suffering a lot. There is unease about politics in general. The year ended badly in June, both at the federal and regional levels. The reforms are not happening as the Flemings would like. Faced with this, there is an answer, it is work in governments”, confides Egbert Lachaert from the outset.
The latter returned to the rather chaotic elections that the Open VLD experienced to elect its successor, all less than a year before the national and regional elections. “It was a very complicated handover. Now the debate is closed. This is a choice that the party is making for next year. Alexander De Croo is the political leader of the party. Tom Ongena (editor’s note: the new president of the Open VLD) was the party’s electoral campaign director. He will continue this work. It’s a valid strategy when you have the Prime Minister in your party. We have already experienced this in the past.”
Egbert Lachaert also took stock of Vivaldi: “It is valid but the first two years, it was crisis management. Fortunately the government was there. Now, we are in another phase, that of economic reforms, particularly for the budget. And there, we have to let Vivaldi work but we wonder if agreements can be found.”
The former president of the Flemish Liberals explained Bart De Wever’s plan to create a cartel of Flemish parties so that the PS would not be in power after the elections on June 9. “It’s Bart De Wever’s plan but not mine. I am worried about the political situation in Flanders. We are in a balkanized political landscape in Flanders. Our largest party is the N-VA. Many citizens are becoming detached from politics. To deal with this, we must continue to work at the federal and regional levels to be able to have reforms. There are things on which we agree in Flanders, particularly on the job market. But we need to collaborate more and not hit each other every day. There is no front against the PS but I notice that many reforms are blocked because of them. […] The PS must move towards modernity,” explains the guest of LN24 and LN Radio.
Egbert Lachaert, very enthusiastic this Tuesday morning, also spoke of his potential political retirement.
Relive the interview in full in the video above.
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