Sophie Wilmès

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Sophie Wilmès (2020 in the Belgian Chamber of Deputies )

Sophie Wilmès (born January 15, 1975 in Ixelles / Elsene ) is a Belgian politician from the Mouvement Réformateur (MR). She was executive from October 27, 2019 and has been the Ordinary Prime Minister of Belgium with the governments of Wilmès I and Wilmès II since March 17, 2020 . Wilmès is the first woman in this position. She succeeded Charles Michel in office , in whose governments Michel I and Michel II she was budget minister since September 22, 2015. She had previously been elected to the federal Chamber of Deputies in 2014 as a substitute candidate for Didier Reynders (MR) .

family

Sophie Wilmès spent her childhood in Grez-Doiceau . Her father Philippe Wilmès (1938-2010) was professor of economics at the Catholic University of Louvain-La-Neuve and head of cabinet of Jean Gol , co-founder of the liberal Mouvement Réformateur party , at that time as Parti Réformateur Libéral, and several times deputy prime minister under Prime Minister Wilfried Martens . Later her father was on the board of directors of the National Bank of Belgium .

Her mother was also in politics, she had staff positions in several ministries. Her parents "kept talking about politics at home".

Her mother is Jewish and has lost several family members in the Holocaust , her father is Catholic and she attended Catholic schools. Wilmès does not commit himself in public and refuses to be pigeonholed "in a drawer". In an interview she emphasizes her “cosmopolitan” upbringing and that she wants to use the “totality of acquired values” in her work.

After graduating from school, she moved to Brussels , where she studied communication sciences at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Communications Sociales (IHECS) until 1997 . In 2002, she graduated from the Institut Supérieur de Commerce Saint Louis with an evening school degree in financial management.

Wilmès is married to the Australian Christopher Stone and has four children.

Professional background

Wilmès started her professional career in 1998 as an assistant at the European Commission in the area of ​​budget control. She then moved to a law firm specializing in commercial law as a business and financial advisor. She gave up this job in 2007 in order to concentrate on her political career.

As a councilor in Uccle / Ukkel , Wilmès made her first political steps in 2000 on the list of Parti Réformateur Libéral (PRL), which was later renamed Mouvement Réformateur . She had to resign the mandate in 2005 because she moved to the Flemish " Facility Community " Sint-Genesius-Rode . She was elected to the parish council of Sint-Genesius-Rode in 2006; there she immediately received the office of first lay judge. She had to give up her mandate as a provincial councilor for the Union des Francophones (UF) in 2014 after she was elected as a substitute candidate for the deputy prime minister and foreign minister Didier Reynders (MR) in the federal chamber of representatives .

About a year after the formation of the government, the MR announced that Wilmès, who was previously little known at the federal level , would take over the post of budget minister from her party colleague Hervé Jamar so that he could take over the office of governor of the province of Liège . On September 22nd, 2015, she took the oath of office before King Philippe as federal budget minister.

Belgian Prime Minister

As Acting Executive Prime Minister Charles Michel was nominated to succeed Donald Tusk as President of the European Council from December 1, 2019, he resigned from his post at the end of October 2019. On October 26th, his Mouvement Réformateur (MR) party decided to propose the former Federal Minister Wilmès as acting Prime Minister. On the following day, October 27, 2019 took King the resignation of the Government Michel II and appointed Wilmes as prime minister with executive government Wilmes I .

After long and fruitless attempts to form a government, the emerging COVID-19 pandemic led to calls for the formation of a bipartisan and temporary emergency government. On March 17, 2020, Wilmès was sworn in by the King as Ordinary Prime Minister, and her government was confirmed by a broad parliamentary majority on March 19, 2020. In addition to the three parties of their previous minority government MR , Open VLD and CD&V , the Flemish and Walloon Socialists ( sp.a and PS ), Flemish and Walloon Greens ( Groen and Ecolo ), the Walloon Christian Democrats ( CDH ) and the Brussels group DéFI also agreed , while the Walloon Marxist PTB and the two Flemish nationalist parties N-VA and Vlaams Belang voted against them. It was elected by 84 votes to 44, with 22 absent. Your new Wilmès II government consists of the same ministers as the previous government. However, she had to promise to rule for only six months and only concern herself with overcoming the pandemic and the economic and financial consequences; after six months she has to ask the vote of confidence. To this end, she was given additional special powers on March 26th, which allow her to govern by means of decrees.

Overview of their political offices

Web links

Commons : Sophie Wilmès  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniel Steinvorth: In Belgium the new Prime Minister is the woman of the hour. In: nzz.ch, March 19, 2020, accessed on March 19, 2020.
  2. ↑ Belga : Sophie Wilmès nommée Première ministre par intérim, première femme à ce poste La Libre October 27, 2019, accessed online on October 27, 2019 (French).
  3. ^ Belga : Qui est vraiment Sophie Wilmès, la première femme à décrocher le 16 rue de la Loi. In: La Libre Belgique , October 26, 2019, online , accessed on October 27, 2019 (French).
  4. ^ Belgium's first female prime minister is Jewish. In: The Times of Israel . October 24, 2019, accessed October 29, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Frédéric Chardon: Sur la question des femmes, ma désignation crée un précédent. La Libre Belgique of November 2, 2019, pp. 4-5. In the original: dans une case “in a drawer”, C'est l'ensemble de ces valeurs “totality of acquired values”, une éducation à l'ouverture du monde “cosmopolitan education”.
  6. ↑ Catherine Ernens: Ministre modèle ou notaire du budget: qui est Sophie Wilmès? L'Avenir (Belgium) September 28, 2016, accessed online October 27, 2019 (French).
  7. ↑ Lalibre: Hervé Jamar quitte le gouvernement fédéral, remplacé par Sophie Wilmès (September 21, 2015) (French).
  8. ^ Antoine Clevers: Sophie Wilmès aux députés: "Je serai une partenaire loyale". La Libre of March 20, 2020, pages 18-19
  9. ^ Antonie Clevers: "La Chambre accorde les pouvoirs spéciaux au gouvernement: une commission créée pour le surveiller." Vidéo on LaLibre.be of March 26, 2020, accessed on March 28, 2020, 11:25 pm, link
personal data
SURNAME Wilmès, Sophie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian politician of the Mouvement Réformateur (MR)
DATE OF BIRTH 15th January 1975
PLACE OF BIRTH Ixelles / Elsene