Armand De Decker

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Armand De Decker (2001)

Armand De Decker (born October 8, 1948 in Brussels - † June 12, 2019 ) was a Belgian politician of the Mouvement Réformateur (MR). De Decker was a long-time parliamentarian and last met as a member of the parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region . He was President of the Senate from 1999 to 2004 and from 2007 to 2010 . He also served as Minister for Development Cooperation from 2004 to 2007. At the local level, De Decker was mayor of the Brussels municipality of Uccle / Ukkel until his resignation on June 17, 2017 as part of the Kazakhgate affair . Since 2009 he has held the honorary title of Minister of State .

Life

Armand De Decker was born to Luc De Decker, a Flemish painter. His mother was a teacher. De Decker studied law at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and was admitted to the bar in 1973.

De Decker has a brother (Jacques), himself a writer and permanent secretary of the Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique, which should not be confused with the Royal Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts . Armand's wife, Jacqueline Rousseaux, is also a lawyer and member of the Brussels Parliament.

When the Parti Réformateur Libéral (PRL), the predecessor of today's Mouvement Réformateur (MR), was founded in 1979, Armand De Decker was able to secure a place in the leadership of the party. His true political work began in 1980 when he was hired as an advisor to the Cabinet of Defense Secretary Charles Poswick (PRL). The following year, De Decker was elected to the Chamber of Deputies , in which he remained until 1995. There he specialized in matters of international and defense policy in Belgium. He was also a member of the parliamentary assemblies of the Council of Europe and the Western European Union (WEU).

Armand De Decker first held a variety of offices in the late 1990s. From 1995 to 1999 he was President of the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region and from 1999 to 2004 President of the Senate (of which he had been a Community Senator since 1995). In 2004, when the then Foreign Minister Louis Michel (MR) moved to the European Commission , De Decker received the post of Minister for Development Cooperation in the Verhofstadt II government under Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt ( VLD ). After the 2007 federal elections, he left the government and was re-elected President of the Senate. As a result of the election defeat of the MR in the federal elections in 2010, however, he gave up this office again on July 20, 2010 and was replaced by Danny Pieters ( N-VA ) at the head of the Senate. Until 2014, De Decker met again as a simple senator. On the occasion of the federal and regional elections on May 25, 2014 Armand De Decker was elected to the parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region.

At the local level, Armand De Decker was able to fight for the mayor's office of the Brussels municipality of Uccle / Ukkel in 2006. There he won an absolute majority in local elections in both 2006 and 2012, but still ruled in a broad coalition with the humanists of the Center Démocrate Humaniste and the francophone regionalists of the Démocrate Fédéraliste Indépendant .

Kazakhgate scandal

In the Kazakhgate scandal, De Decker was accused of having mixed his legal work with his political position and of having collected 700,000 euros for exerting political influence. As part of a military deal between France and Kazakhstan , then French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked him, as the then President of the Belgian Senate, for help to acquit the Kazakh businessman Patokh Chodiev and two business friends of money laundering through a new law - this is a precondition for the Kazakhstani Been dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev . In return, De Decker exerted political influence on the then Belgian Minister of Justice Stefaan De Clerck to introduce a so-called "transaction law" to exonerate criminal law against payment of a sum of money. The law was passed on April 14, 2011, and on June 17, 2011 Chodiev was acquitted on payment of 23 million euros. Just ten days later, French Prime Minister François Fillon signed the contract for the delivery of military helicopters to Kazakhstan. In Belgium, a parliamentary committee of inquiry was set up to investigate what was going on and the link between legal work and political influence, which led to the resignation of Armand De Decker as Mayor of Uccle on June 17, 2017 .

Honors

Armand De Decker has held the honorary title of Minister of State since November 24, 2009. He was since 1999 Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold and since 2003 Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold II. De Decker also received numerous foreign honorary degrees and is, for example, Knight of the French Legion of Honor , Grand Cross of the Italian Order of Merit and Grand Cross of the Dutch Order of Orange-Nassau .

Overview of political offices

  • 1981–1995: Member of the Chamber of Deputies
  • 1981–2003: Member of the Parliament of the French Community
  • 1989–1991: Member of the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region
  • 1989–1995: Jury in Uccle / Ukkel
  • 1995–2003: Member of the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region
  • 1995–1999: President of the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region
  • 1995-2014: Senator (partially prevented)
  • 1999–2004: President of the Senate
  • 2004–2007: Federal Minister for Development Cooperation in the Verhofstadt II government
  • 2006–2017: Mayor of Uccle / Ukkel (partially prevented)
  • 2007–2010: President of the Senate
  • from 2014: Member of the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexandre Tabankia: L'you ex-président et Sénat ex-bourgmestre d'Uccle Armand de Decker (MR) est décédé. In: rtbf.be . June 12, 2019, accessed June 13, 2019 (French). Ex-Senate President Armand De Decker has died. In: Grenz-Echo . June 13, 2019, accessed June 13, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Flahaut en Pieters verkozen than voor Zitters Kamer en Senaat. In: DeStandaard.be . July 20, 2010, accessed June 13, 2019 (Dutch).
  3. ↑ J. Bes: Uccle: Armand De Decker démissionne de son poste de bourgmestre. In: La Libre Belgique . June 17, 2017, accessed June 13, 2019 (French).
personal data
SURNAME De Decker, Armand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian Senator and Mayor
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Brussels
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 2019