Karel De Gucht

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Karel De Gucht

Karel Lodewijk Georgette Emmerence De Gucht (born January 27, 1954 in Overmere, today in Berlare ) is a Flemish - Belgian lawyer and politician ( Flemish Liberals and Democrats ). From 2004 to 2009 he was Belgian Foreign Minister . From 2010 to 2014 he was Commissioner for Trade in the EU Commission Barroso II . On November 1, he was replaced by the Swede Cecilia Malmström , who was previously the EU interior commissioner .

Life and political career

De Gucht is the son of a farmer from Overmere . In 1971 he received his diploma from the Athénée royal von Aalst in East Flanders , and in 1976 he obtained his legal license from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel . In addition to his legal career, he was also involved in politics. De Gucht is a member of a Masonic Lodge .

Karel De Gucht is a member of the Flemish Liberals and Democrats party, which he chaired from 1999 to 2004. From 1980 to 1994 he was a member of the European Parliament , 1994 to 1995 of the Belgian Senate , and 1995 to 2003 of the Parliament of the Flemish Community . In the parliamentary elections in 2003 he was elected to the Belgian House of Representatives and was Foreign Minister since July 18, 2004 , first under Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and since 2008 under Yves Leterme and Herman Van Rompuy . With the move to the EU Commission, he gave up the office of Foreign Minister. He was succeeded by Yves Leterme.

In 2006 De Gucht was Chairman of the OSCE . With effect from July 17, 2009, the EU Commission appointed him to succeed Louis Michel as EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid .

From February 2010 to 2014 Commissioner for Trade in the EU Commission Barroso II. On November 1, he was replaced by the Swede Cecilia Malmström, who was previously EU Commissioner for the Interior.

In 2010, 2012 and 2015 De Gucht took part in the Bilderberg Conference .

Private life

Karel de Gucht is married to Mireille Schreurs, a police judge in Aalst . Jean-Jacques De Gucht , a member of the Belgian Senate, is their son.

Controversy

On a trip to Africa in 2004, De Gucht aroused diplomatic resentment when he said there was a problem with the political class in the Democratic Republic of the Congo . He questioned the government's ability to fight corruption. After labeling President Joseph Kabila's government as chaotic, the Minister for Information, Henri Mova Sakanyi , accused him of racism and colonial nostalgia and compared him to " Tintin in the Congo " . De Gucht refused to withdraw his statement.

In June 2005, De Gucht caused a diplomatic upset when he compared the Prime Minister of the Netherlands Jan Peter Balkenende as a mixture of Harry Potter and a rigid bourgeois without charisma.

In 2007, in an interview with Flanders Info about the Lisbon Treaty , he said that the aim of the Constitutional Treaty was to be legible, the aim of this (current) Treaty was to be illegible. The constitution aimed at clarity, while the current treaty had to be unclear. That is a success.

In November 2008, when De Gucht was Minister of the Belgian Federal Government, he was accused of insider trading in a case of impending bankruptcy and the following nationalization and sale of Fortis Bank : On October 3, 2008, his wife Mireille Schreurs and brother-in-law had their share in the Fortis Bank was sold after a government crisis meeting to address the bank's precarious position, hours before it was publicly announced that the bank's Dutch branch would be nationalized and the partially nationalized Luxembourg and Belgian parts of the bank would be sold to BNP Paribas .

In an interview with the public broadcaster VRT on the subject of the peace process in Palestine and the Washington talks in September 2010, De Gucht showed skepticism about the peace process. He said that one should not underestimate the Jewish lobby in the Capitol. It is the best organized lobby, and one should not underestimate its influence on American politics, regardless of whether it is Republicans or Democrats. He went on to say that one should not underestimate the opinion of Jews outside Israel. Most people believe that there is hardly any other way to describe that they are right. A belief is difficult to counter with rational arguments. It is not so important whether they are religious Jews or not. Non-religious Jews also shared the same belief that they were right. Therefore, it is difficult, even with moderate Jews, to have a rational discussion about what is really going on in the Middle East. It's a very emotional topic. The European Jewish Congress (EJC) described the statements as anti-Semitic and demanded an apology. De Gucht replied that he had expressed his personal opinion and regretted that it had been misunderstood. He made it clear that he rejects anti-Semitism. His remarks were placed on the list of the Top Ten Anti-Semitic / Anti-Israel Slurs by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in 2010 .

In April 2012, he was attacked for claiming Ireland was out of recession when Ireland still had 15% unemployed.

In office as Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission

Greece

In May 2012 he announced that the European Central Bank and the European Commission are working on emergency scenarios in case Greece does not make it. The state of Greece must stand by the agreements on savings and reforms, that is "the only rational option". He warned of the "final".

ACTA

De Gucht was a proponent of the ACTA international trade agreement. On March 1, 2012, as Trade Commissioner, he represented ACTA's supporters at an event in the European Parliament . The exclusionary style of negotiation and the influence of lobbyists were criticized.

Punitive tariffs for Chinese solar modules

In 2013, De Gucht advocated the imposition of punitive tariffs on China for dumping in the trade in solar panels, despite concerns from Germany and other EU member states .

TTIP

As chief negotiator with the United States for the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TTIP), De Gucht strongly argued that this agreement was a growth engine that would create new jobs. This has been questioned by well-known critics like Gabriel Felbermayr from the Ifo Institute for Economic Research . De Gucht was also accused of a lack of transparency in the negotiations. They have the character of secret negotiations.

His statement of March 6, 2013 in an interview with Le Monde that France is not a country of free trade met with strong criticism in France . He criticized Minister Arnaud Montebourg for being too defensive about the free trade agreement.

On January 20, 2014, De Gucht decided to suspend parts of the free trade talks for three months because critical issues, such as investment protection , had to be clarified.

Nonetheless, De Gucht, who leads the EU negotiating group, feared that the transatlantic agreement could ultimately fail - due to resistance from individual national parliaments. A veto in the Bundestag, in the French National Assembly or in the Spanish Parliament could bring down the entire agreement. In order to prevent this risk, according to SZ information , De Gucht prepared an action against the member states before the European Court of Justice. He wants the Court of Justice to clarify who can ultimately vote on the agreement - and who cannot. The point of contention is that the Brussels Commission is usually responsible for trade issues within the European Union .

EU Commissioner Karel De Gucht described the approximately 100,000 responses from citizens to the investor complaints he had proposed in the trade and investment agreements TTIP and CETA as a “real attack” and assumed a “concerted action”.

In a report with Monitor from January 2014, De Gucht was confronted with a long-term study on the effects of TTIP on the economy, which he himself commissioned. The study forecast an increase in gross national product of just 0.05 percent per year. De Gucht interrupted the interview at this point: “Let's not argue with numbers. I tell them we will remove most of the trade barriers. "

Web links

Commons : Karel De Gucht  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. De kinderen van Hiram. Vrijmetselaars en Vrijmetselarij (1991, Andries Van den Abeele) ISBN 90-72411-75-7
  2. Jean-Jacques De Gucht: 'Onze Jean-Jacques heeft het, niet?' door Walter Pauli . ( jeanjacquesdegucht.be [accessed November 3, 2018]).
  3. Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bilderbergmeetings.org
  4. ^ Belgium rounds on former colony. In: BBC News , October 18, 2004, accessed January 6, 2010.
  5. BBC News staff: DR Congo slams 'Tintin' minister , BBC News. October 22, 2004. 
  6. Leo Cendrowicz: Tintin: Heroic Boy Reporter or Sinister Racist? . In: TIME , May 4, 2010. Archived from the original on June 6, 2013. Retrieved June 6, 2013. 
  7. Flandreinfo, June 23, 2007.
  8. ^ Dutch Vrouw De Gucht overcooks Fortis-aandelen met voorkennis . Demorgen.be. June 18, 2009. Archived from the original on June 11, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 14, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.demorgen.be
  9. ^ Dutch Government Nationalizes Fortis Bank Nederland (Holding) NV; BNP Paribas to Acquire Fortis Operations in Belgium and Luxembourg . Alston.com. Archived from the original on July 7, 2011. Retrieved January 14, 2013.
  10. Jennifer Lipman: Outcry over EU man's 'antisemitic' remarks . In: The Jewish Chronicle , September 3, 2010. 
  11. Karel De Gucht: Vredesgesprekken Midden-Oosten started . In: Radio 1 , September 2, 2010. 
  12. ^ Ian Traynor: Anger at EU chief's Middle East outburst . In: The Guardian , September 3, 2010. 
  13. EU Commissioner reviles Jews as right-wingers , Spiegel Online, September 3, 2010
  14. Yossi Lempkowicz: EU Commission: Karel De Gucht's remarks on Jews 'are personal comments' . EJP (European Jewish Press). September 3, 2010. Archived from the original on March 8, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 14, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ejpress.org
  15. ^ John W. Miller: EU Official in Trouble for Remarks on Jews. In: Wall Street Journal . September 3, 2010 (English).
  16. 2010 Top Ten Anti-Semitic Slurs. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: wiesenthal.com. Archived from the original on October 17, 2012 ; accessed on January 14, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wiesenthal.com
  17. Rebecca Noonan: Meanwhile, In Ghent. In: broadsheet.ie . April 12, 2013 (English).
  18. sueddeutsche.de , spiegel.de May 18, 2012: [1]
  19. ACTA: EU Parliament faces criticism , FM4, March 1, 2012
  20. FDP bows to pressure from Internet activists. In: sueddeutsche.de. February 10, 2012, accessed March 16, 2018 .
  21. AFP: Solar industry: EU decides punitive tariffs against China. In: Zeit Online. June 4, 2013, accessed February 2, 2014 .
  22. Martin Orth: EU Commissioner Karel De Gucht in a DE interview. In: deutschland.de . 15 March 2013.
  23. ^ Stephan Stuchlik, Achim Pollmeier: Free trade agreement: The fairy tale of the job engine. Post in Monitor No. 657. In. WDR.de . January 30, 2014.
  24. Claus Hecking, Michaela Schiessl, Gregor Peter Schmitz: EU free trade agreement with the USA: fear of the anger of the citizens. In: Spiegel Online . January 21, 2014.
  25. ^ Karel De Gucht: La France n'est pas un pays libre-échangiste. In: Le Monde . March 6, 2013 (French).
  26. Free trade talks with the USA partially suspended. In: The world online . January 21, 2014.
  27. ↑ Speed limit for turbo pigs. In: sueddeutsche.de. April 29, 2014, accessed April 26, 2018 .
  28. FAZ.NET / AFP, dpa, questions, answers: hmk., Rike .: EU commissioner sees “attack” against free trade agreements. In: FAZ.net . July 20, 2014, accessed October 13, 2018 .
  29. http://www.daserste.de/information/reportage-dokumentation/dokus/sendung/wdr/der-grosse-deal-106.html ( Memento from August 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  30. ^ Javier Cáceres: TTIP research. In: sueddeutsche.de . August 13, 2014, accessed October 13, 2018 .