2023-11-04 11:49:32
Update
04 November 2023
12:49
For the president of the PS, single men residing illegally who pose public security problems must be expelled as a priority.
Paul Magnette makes no secret of it: the federal government is at the end of its rope. “We knew that the budget would be the last act of this government, we are not going to pretend that we were unaware of it, he said. The Belgian presidency (of the Council of the European Union, Editor’s note) begins in January and that doesn’t leave much space to do big things, knowing that we will clearly be in the campaign.”
You had called for an extension of the Vivaldi, would you say that once more while the Open Vld is sinking into crisis?
It is the project which is for ten years, not the coalition. We’ll see. If the polls are confirmed at the polls, there is no embarrassment of choice. Around forty seats are neutralized by the extremes, there are around a hundred remaining, so there will be no state reform. For this, all parties except the extremes would have to agree, which is impossible. This is already good news, and then we will see what is possible. The merit of the Vivaldi is to be there. We still have a majority even if it is fading.
“Believing that there is a bonus for the Prime Minister’s party in Belgium is an error of analysis.”
Given De Croo’s situation, it’s not so bad following all to have given up on 16, right?
I have never regretted it and to tell you a secret, it was while thinking regarding this that I decided at the time. Believing that there is a bonus for the Prime Minister’s party in Belgium is an error of analysis. Here it is even more serious, because it is an internal crisis.
Did Van Quickenborne do the right thing by resigning?
He had no choice but that is to his credit. We have known ministers who clung to power whereas political responsibility consists of taking responsibility even if one does not make a mistake personally.
Do you agree that it’s one man’s fault?
It’s never a man’s fault. And what a man does depends on the context in which he works. Savings made by the previous government led to a shortage of magistrates in Brussels, which also explains why a mistake can be made more easily. But that an extradition request might have been forgotten is astonishing.
How do you position yourself on the issue of orders to leave the territory (OQT) which are not executed?
We have been saying for years that they must be executed, but there is reality. There are a lot of them and we can’t do them all. Sometimes we cannot establish the identity of the person, sometimes the country does not want to grant them a pass or there are no bilateral agreements with the countries of origin. So, I’m not snapping my fingers and saying it’s easy.. But as mayor, I am confronted every day with drug trafficking problems. 85% of the people we arrest are illegal residents and are nationals of two or three countries with which we have bilateral agreements. So we can do it and we don’t do it. It’s driving me crazy, my police too. Every day, drug dealers are arrested. When they leave prison, they should not be released, but taken to a closed center and repatriated. Under Francken most of the time, it was families who posed no problems that were sent away, that’s a number. Let us spend less energy bothering these families and give priority to single men who pose a public order problem. Furthermore, the VUB estimates the number of undocumented immigrants at 112,000. This means that there is an immense social fraud going on here.. We need to regularize a certain number of people who are there, who work, often in sectors with shortages.
Secretary of State Moor believes that this would send the wrong signal.
You have to do both. Those who work, we regularize them, the employers request it, and we carry out the OQT.
What regarding your relations with the N-VA?
No contact. I told Bart De Wever at the start of the legislature that during Vivaldi I would discuss Vivaldi with the party presidents, not the opposition. I see that he is trying to put nationalist identity into socio-economic issues.
Has the momentum passed with the N-VA?
For a year, I did not discuss with the N-VA because I did not want to form a government with the N-VA. Then under pressure from everything you can imagine as power in this country, we talked for a few days. This demonstrated that it was not feasible, which made it possible to do the Vivaldi.
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