Guy Coëme

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Guy Coëme (born August 21, 1946 in Bettincourt , Waremme , Province of Liège ) is a Belgian politician of the Parti Socialiste (PS), who was, among other things, Prime Minister of the Walloon Region and Defense Minister of Belgium . He has been mayor of Waremme since 2006 .

Life

Minister, resignation and conviction for the Agusta affair

After schooling studied Coëme political science at the University of Liege and completed his licentiate with honors.

In 1981 he became State Secretary in the Wallonia government , where he was responsible for the environment, water policy and spatial planning. On November 8, 1981, he was elected for the first time as a candidate for the PS to the Belgian Chamber of Deputies and was a member of this until April 19, 1996.

On February 3, 1988, he succeeded Melchior Wathelet as Prime Minister of the Walloon Region, but only held this post for a little more than three months until he was replaced by Bernard Anselme on May 11, 1988.

Shortly before, on May 9, Coëme was appointed Minister of Defense to Prime Minister Wilfried Martens' eighth cabinet . He also held the post of defense minister in the subsequent ninth Martens government until March 7, 1992. In this capacity, after the stay-behind organization Gladio in Italy became known , he requested investigations in Belgium. This had the task of clarifying whether the Belgian stay-behind organization was involved in the massacre of the killer gang of Brabant . The Senators found no solid evidence that Gladio was involved or that criminal groups had infiltrated the stay-behind network.

Subsequently, he was on 7 March 1992 by Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene in the first cabinet appointed and was there until his resignation on January 23, 1994 Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Communications and companies. He was responsible for transport, telecommunications, post, air transport, the National Company of the Belgian Railways (NMBS / SNCB) and the state telecommunications company Belgacom .

The reason for his resignation on January 23, 1994 was the so-called Agusta affair , a corruption affair in connection with the purchase of combat helicopters by the Belgian army from the Italian manufacturer Agusta in 1988. On December 23, 1998, Coëme was sentenced by the Court of Cassation to a prison sentence of 2 years for corruption Sentenced to probation for years and banned from holding public office for five years. In addition to him, the politicians Willy Claes , Franck Vandenbroucke and Guy Spitaels were convicted of involvement in the Agusta affair.

Political comeback

After this ban had expired, he was elected a member of the Walloon Parliament in 2003 and received broad support with 20,766 votes.

In the local elections on December 4, 2006, he was also elected mayor of Waremme and has held this office ever since.

On June 10, 2007, Coëme was also re-elected to the Belgian Chamber of Deputies, where he represents the constituency of Liège . He is a member of the finance and budget committees, as well as the audit committees, as well as a deputy member of the committees on issues of commercial and economic law, on the revision of the constitution and institutional reform, and on foreign affairs. He is also a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Belgian Senate (French / Dutch; PDF file; 28.29 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Coëme, Guy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian politician and mayor
DATE OF BIRTH August 21, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Bettincourt , Waremme , Liege Province