Philippe Monfils

Philippe Monfils (born January 4, 1939 in Liège , Wallonia , Belgium ) is a Belgian politician of the Parti de la liberté et du progrès (PLP) and was Prime Minister of the French Community of Belgium .

biography

After attending school, he studied law at the University of Liege and a PhD there in 1962 Doctor of Law . Between 1962 and 1968 he was a research assistant at the chair of François Perin , a professor of constitutional law . When he later became Minister for Institutional Reforms in the government of Prime Minister Leo Tindemans , Monfils was the latter's head of cabinet from 1974 to 1976 and as such was jointly responsible for shaping the subsequent regionalization of Belgium.

He began his own political career when he was elected a member of the Liege Municipal Council , to which he belonged between 1976 and 1982 as a representative of the Wallon Rassemblement (RW), which Perin co-founded . After the RW, under the influence of Paul-Henry Gendebien , increasingly moved closer to the left political camp , he left the RW in 1976 together with François Perin, Jean Gol and Étienne Knoops disappointed and founded the Parti pour les Réformes et la Liberté de Wallonie with them (PRLw).

In 1981 he was elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies and remains a member until 1988. At the same time, he was Minister of Social Affairs in the Walloon regional government from December 1981 to December 1985 during the tenure of Prime Minister Philippe Moureaux . Subsequently, he was his successor from December 9, 1985 to February 2, 1988 himself Prime Minister of the French Community of Belgium. As such, he also laid the foundation for the end of the monopoly of the Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française (RTBF).

After the end of his tenure as Prime Minister of Wallonia, he was elected a member of the Senate in 1988 and remains a member of it until 1995. After Jean Gol's sudden death on September 17, 1995, he was elected as his successor to the 4th European Parliament and also to the Parliament of the Walloon Region.

When he left the European Parliament in 1999 , he was re-elected Senator. As such, he campaigned for a reform of the right to euthanasia , the right to own weapons , but also for the rehabilitation of the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps to continue the Belgian Grand Prix in Formula 1 .

For his political merits, Philippe Monfils was awarded the honorary title of Minister of State on January 26, 2004, along with a number of other politicians .

After he was again a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 2003 to 2007, he was re-elected to the Senate, which was in office until 2011, in 2007. In May 2010, he resigned from his position as senator.

Web links

• Sénat de Belgique
• Belgian region and communities (rulers.org)
• Entry on Philippe Monfils in the database of Members of the European Parliament