Proposition 51K0817

Proposition de résolution relative à la prévention et au traitement des épidémies humaines dans notre pays (SRAS, grippe, ...).

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Luc Goutry
LE Catherine Fonck
MR Dominique Tilmans
Open Vld Yolande Avontroodt
PS | SP Yvan Mayeur
Vooruit Karin Jiroflée

Submission date

Feb. 17, 2004

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

epidemic resolution of parliament public health illness

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA MR FN VB

Contact form ¶

Do you have a question or request regarding this proposition? Select the most appropriate option for your request and I will get back to you shortly.

Discussion ¶

March 18, 2004 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Committee on Public Health examined this proposal for a resolution at its meeting on 3 March 2004.

by Mr. Mayeur, lead author of the proposal, said that the text under discussion follows the mission carried out by a mixed delegation, parliamentary and ministerial, in Toronto, whose aim was to examine how Canada had managed the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

The draft resolution, which takes into account Minister Demotte’s plan on the organization and management of contagious diseases, aims to formulate some recommendations to the Government.

First, it is requested to establish an agency for the surveillance of infectious diseases, to develop – in collaboration with the Communities – a monitoring of infectious diseases and also to establish a health emergency device and a system for the communication of information between health authorities and all relevant actors.

The resolution also calls on the government to identify a hospital centre and a reference laboratory, as well as to develop protocols containing clear instructions for hospitals and healthcare providers.

In addition to these measures, the government will also need to ensure that sufficient stocks of medicines, vaccines and medical equipment are established. In case of crisis, the authorities will need to strengthen the teams of the care and emergency units, and take measures to ensure the mobility of staff. The necessary resources for combating nosocomial infections and enhancing the quality of hospital hygiene should also be allocated to hospitals.

Finally, appropriate adjustments to the Patient Rights Act and the Privacy Protection Act will need to be made.

In the discussion, Ms. Tilmans emphasized that the meetings held in Canada were rich in lessons for the members of the delegation. For her, it is crucial to provide a perfect hierarchy of roles. Indeed, the problems encountered in Canada were mainly the result of multiple instances whose functions were not clearly defined. It is primary that the response to an epidemic is organized under the responsibility of the Minister having Public Health in his powers.

Ms Avontroodt states that the proposal truly engages the government. The means necessary for its implementation must be provided. She asks about the financial resources devoted to the health surveillance cell and the possible efforts that will be provided by the caring staff. The speaker notes that particular attention should be paid to possible conflicts of jurisdiction and that active consultation should be conducted with the Communities. Local authorities and provinces should also be consulted.

Ms Avontroodt is also in favor of conducting a monitoring that would allow better control and management of nosocomial disorders. The draft resolution designates a reference hospital. The speaker also pledged for the strengthening of provincial hospital units. Finally, it is appropriate to take into account existing expertise such as that of the Institute of Tropical Diseases in Antwerp. Doyen-Fonck believes that the recommendations made are essential in a time when germs know no borders. It emphasizes the importance of having provincial reference units and fears that the designation of a single reference hospital will increase the risk of contamination. There is no objection to the designation of hospitals other than the reference hospital.

Ms Tilmans considers that the designation of a reference hospital by province is disproportionate if the area of Belgium is taken into account. However, it supports the idea that it is essential to inform local authorities.

Ms. Detiège highlights the crucial role of communication in this area. It asks what the Minister’s intentions are in terms of inventory and medicines. Is the purpose to use a public procurement?

by Mr. Minister Demotte, on the other hand, supports the recommendations formulated but expresses some reservations regarding the establishment of an agency for the monitoring of infectious diseases. He recalls that the problems encountered in Canada resulted from mistakes made in structuring the care of patients. The designation of a reference hospital seems appropriate, but it must be doubled with the development of protocols for healthcare providers. Budgetary resources have been provided for the strengthening of the health surveillance structures with staff doubled and the establishment of stocks of antiviral drugs. A consultation is currently taking place between Minister Demotte and the Minister of the Interior, in order to reform and improve the effectiveness of emergency handling mechanisms. The future structure will have to take into account the achievements achieved at European level.

by Mr. Mayeur notes that in case of illness, it is necessary that the logic of safety gives way to a logic of public health. That is why it is necessary to be able to resort to specialized persons who can defend the overall approach to public order. The measures of isolation and quarantine rely, of course, on the intervention of law enforcement forces, but it is the public health message that must prevail. Finally, a disease surveillance agency would be a comprehensible, identifiable and transparent structure and would, in addition, have the merit of depolitizing the information given to citizens.

Mrs Avontroodt asks about the financial compensation granted to persons placed in isolation without being sick. What happens to their salary? Employers should not bear the financial burden. The Minister cannot answer this question, since the problem involves a prior dialogue with the social interlocutors.

Finally, Ms. Avontroodt and consorts submit an amendment aimed at inserting a point in the dispositif of the proposal, inviting the government to initiate a consultation with the social partners in order to settle the implications of a possible mandatory removal from the workplace. This amendment was adopted unanimously. The amended draft resolution as a whole is also adopted unanimously.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, this proposal for a resolution is of course our full support. It was signed by Mr. Goutry, who today apologized. It is good that the health of the Belgian population is not a game of majority and opposition, not a well-being game. For this, the commitment is too important.

Today there is an unprecedented risk of being infected by the increased globalization of interpersonal traffic, as rightly included in the considerations. This causes the so-called atropoth-born infections to rise in which virus-transmitting insects are carried with exotic, tropical or subtropical travel and cause an infection in us. The increased risk is also the result of new, more intense migration waves and also of a threatening bioterrorism. We should ⁇ not hide this either.

There is also a persistently heavy human pressure on the original biotops. Due to this very intense contact between human and animal, more and more bacteria and viruses make the leap from animal to human. This could lead to disaster scenarios such as in 1918 with the Spanish flu where the swine flu virus jumped to humans. People infected each other by sneezing and coughing, resulting in 40 million deaths. In the last three decades alone, about 30 new infectious diseases have been identified, the coronavirus that causes SARS is currently the last in a row. I also think of other viruses such as Ebola or the HIV virus that causes AIDS and that made the leap from the monkey to the human. In 1968, there was the Hong Kong flu that made the leap from bird to human. The comparison with what is happening in Southeast Asia is striking. Wild ducks, due to their migration pattern and the long survival of the influenza virus in cold water, caused a ravage in the pigs and that was thus passed on to humans. All of these viruses have demanded a large toll.

There are also unreleased bacterial diseases. I also asked the question in the committee on Legionaire disease and Lyme disease. Overcome illnesses such as tuberculosis are coming to prevail again.

So far, I think, there has been too little emphasis on this delicate balance between man and animal. In order to thwart every form of zoonosis, we also urge to sit around the table with the agricultural organizations in crisis situations because these people have experience in combating and tackling epidemics. Therefore, for example, prevention measures against the infestation of the Asian bird pest should be taken in the first place from the general public interest, ensure that there is no contamination, including from livestock and domestic animals, making the jump to humans easier. Indeed, the economic here is subordinate to human health, but a second edition of, for example, the bird pest could mean the grace strike for our poultry farmers.

Our group would also like to emphasize that this resolution should not be non-binding, should not end up in a slide, as has happened, for example, with a resolution on the full compensation of the income losses that municipalities suffer by liberating the energy markets, which was unanimously approved by the Flemish Parliament at the end of last year. I would like to come back to it for a moment because colleague Lambert just asked a question about it and received a partial answer about broken promises. Therefore, it remains clearly stuck in good intentions. This makes the Flemish government a completely irrelevant level of administration. We hope that this proposal will succeed, that this proposal will pass the test and that everyone will dare to face the consequences of it.

If we see what has been missed due to a faulty communication at the Marly brand, then we hope that a quick and correct information delivery system will be developed here. After all, informing all humanitarian workers and the population is also an important step in the process of limiting panic and spread of a disease and initiating the organization of emergency services.

We remind you that the necessary financial resources will be released for the strengthening of the Medical Surveillance cell and for the deployed healthcare providers. The Minister informed the members of the committee that he has reached an agreement with the Minister of Finance on the necessary doubling of the staff formation of the Cell Medical Surveillance and the establishment of stocks of antiviral agents. Finally, our group would like to have clarified the size of the budget and whether that budget will be registered for the upcoming budget control. There should also be clarity on the means by which all other aspects of the plan can be implemented.

A final relevant consideration that was also discussed in the committee is the remuneration of people who are forcibly unable to go to their work because, for example, they are placed in quarantine at the time of an outbreak or a suspected outbreak. Currently there is no regulation. The Minister said that consultation with the social partners is necessary. Through an amendment, this problem was added to the resolution, which we welcome. We therefore expect a quick response in order to initiate that consultation.

All of our comments are constructive contributions to the debate and can only promote the implementation on the ground of this resolution. Let us hope that we should never develop a disaster plan, but the least that the citizen can expect from the government is that it has a solid plan and is ready day and night to implement it in a flawless way. This resolution is in the interest of the health of this and future generations and of course receives our full support.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, we must welcome the initiative taken by Minister Demotte and the Chairman of the Public Health Commission, to associate a delegation of the Health Commission to this mission in Canada, which aimed to reflect on the development of a management plan and combating bacteriological, viral, and even bio-terrorist contamination.

This mission allowed us to meet very high-flight specialists who have experienced the problem very closely and who possess a very broad expertise on the subject. This allowed us to save precious time, to gather all the information on the subject, which should allow us to avoid making certain mistakes.

Of course, Belgium is out of nothing. It has already set up a good organization in order to respond to such an event. However, there are many lessons we have learned from Canada. This proposal is, of course, the realization of all these teachings.

I will not repeat all the points put forward in the resolution. I’ll just pin down a few of them:

1 of 1. The need to establish a real agency for the monitoring of infectious diseases, clearly identified as such and equally identifiable by all, both for obvious operational reasons but also for communication purposes.

2 of 2. The establishment of a precise hierarchy, clearly identified under the authority of the Minister of Public Health, which would address, on the one hand, the different institutional powers (federal, community, regional, provincial and municipal) – the Canadian example has sufficiently demonstrated to us the dysfunctions that could occur in the event of poor organization of the various levels of power – and, on the other hand, a good hierarchy at the level of health officials, whether it be healthcare providers, hospitals, or even laboratories.

3 of 3. We were struck by the decisive role of information and communication in crisis situations. For this purpose, it is obvious that a plan must be developed as soon as possible, at all hierarchical and medical levels. This plan should enable — the list is long — including the alert, the dissemination of health guidelines, the information of the population, but also to avoid panic or counter-information. The Canadian example has once again been illuminating on this subject.

4 of 4. Particular attention – I like it very much – must be paid to the field actors who may be the first to be affected by an infected patient. These field actors should be in possession of all the data that allows them to detect the suspected patient but also to relay the information to the health authorities.

5 of 5. I will soon address the issue of stocks. However, I would like to draw the Minister’s attention once again to the stocks of gloves and masks, as much as it has been heard in Canada that these basic work tools — I say very basic — were essential for a good protection of the healthcare staff who — it must be recalled — are the first to be protected from contaminated patients.

In addition, I will add the difficulty that Belgium could experience in obtaining these different stocks in the event of a global crisis, knowing that we are not producers of these materials. Therefore, we could seriously expose healthcare personnel to contamination.

On the other hand, I take good note that the minister has already constituted anti-viral stocks, wise decision, as well as the strengthening of health surveillance teams that are indispensable to this famous alternation of guard teams, always very requested in case of crisis.

Finally, it is necessary to provide for the necessary and sufficient budgetary forecasts to manage a possible crisis but also to equip hospitals and doctors who will have to concentrate all their energy and time on solely the treatment of the epidemic.

These were, Mr. Speaker, the few reflections I wanted to bring to this dossier, knowing that each of us, on both sides, contributed a lot to the elaboration of this proposal for a resolution.

Mr. Speaker, as Ms. Tilmans, our colleague Verhaegen and Mrs. Lambert – the rapporteur of this resolution – have stated, this work has been carried out jointly. Parliament took the initiative of a trip to Toronto to visit the hospitals and study how the epidemic had been responded. The result of this work is in particular the resolution of today and an exposition given by the Minister in the Health Committee on a plan that would enable to deal with an epidemic threat of the type of SRAS, flu or other pandemic in our country.

This is the first time that a preventive type work is done together: parliamentary committee and minister. This attitude is new, interesting, and it should be emphasized.

I will insist, like Ms. Tilmans, on the communication between the actors. I will not repeat his words, but I will rather add that it is necessary to effectively avoid the confusion of information: the false, good or bad news to the population. This is why we insisted in the resolution on the need to develop and make public information both credible and validated by the country’s health authorities in such a way that it does not create facts, either negative or pseudo-positive, in relation to public health events as important as those because they could affect a large population.

The threat is no longer virtual. We are faced with realities. When Canada is facing this issue with a major city like Toronto, Brussels can be too. Colleague Verhaegen said: Globalization, globalization, the place that Brussels plays on the international stage make that we can, tomorrow, also be affected by an epidemic threat. We must prepare for it.

I also emphasize the aspect concerning care personnel and what we indicated in our resolution, aiming to give priority, in terms of taking into account the situation, to care personnel who are the first exposed to the epidemic. In Canada, they paid a heavy tribute to the SRAS since it was among them that many victims and deaths were counted at the beginning of the crisis.

The staff must be informed and trained. It is not enough to create stockpiles of vaccines, it is still necessary to be able to administer them to the population. Therefore, training should be given on how to vaccinate the population. Staff must be prepared preventively. The team must be strengthened in the event of a crisis. In our country there is a shortage of nursing personnel. All this must be planned well in advance. It is also necessary to predict the costs for public health, both of this preparation and the consequences of a crisis.

I would like to conclude on the state of mind that inspired us. In fact, we have proposed a new attitude compared to the one that is usually adopted in our country. We have known eight or ten parliamentary committees in this assembly for about fifteen years. We just saw him about an incident, a key in a pot of salt. There are then a lot of people who are interested in the issue, there are six speakers to question the minister, there are a lot of media! In the end, we might be more popular if we intervened after a crisis!

Now, we are proposing to intervene before a crisis, which is not very media, apparently. This new political attitude seems to me better than the one we have known so far. As part of the search for new political attitudes that we must adopt, ⁇ we have here an example, an experimentation of what could be better than what is usually done!

But the tribute to pay, Mrs. Tilmans, is that we will not go to the JT tonight! If nothing is done, thousands of people are at risk of dying, and then ⁇ big debates will be held on the TV platforms! But as here, we propose that no one dies, that will not make the one of the news and newspapers! It is deplorable!

On this positive state of mind I conclude by thanking you for your attention, Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues.

The discussion is close. The discussion is closed.

The text adopted by the committee serves as the basis for the discussion.

The proposed legislation was examined on 12 March 2004 by the Committee on Revision of the Constitution and Institutional Reforms.

They aim largely to the same objectives. In order to ensure the credibility of politics after elections and to strengthen democracy, the composition of parliamentary assemblies should be matched with the results of the most recent elections, by obliging candidates to sit in the last assembly in which they were elected.

These proposals were rejected in the committee by 7 votes against 4. However, the colleagues wished, as Article 88 of the Rules of the Chamber permits them to do so, that the plenary assembly should take a decision on the proposal for rejection by the committee regarding these proposals.

The Socialist Group adheres to the opinion of the committee and refers for the surplus to the written report, rejecting the above-mentioned bills, believing that the cessation of a political mandate does not occur following the election, but rather at the time of the oath, and that the choice of the assembly must be left to the parliamentary, this choice can also be determined by the choice of the voters.

I would like to thank the rapporteur for her report.

Colleagues, these bills are actually intended to increase voter participation by ensuring that seated MPs who are running for another parliament and are also elected for it are declared invalid from their first mandate so that they must take up their newly elected mandate if they want to remain a member of parliament.

We are faced by our state structure with short successive elections. The law allows — rightly — candidates for several parliaments. That is good. It must be possible to be eligible. It is good that one rotates from time to time to have a different field of view and to be engaged with other powers.

Normally, an elected member of Parliament takes up his mandate. However, there is a constitutional and legal incompatibility between two parliamentary mandates, which means that a sitting parliamentary member, who is elected for another parliament, today has the choice in which parliament he effectively wishes to sit. It is our conviction that this is not a good thing for the credibility of politics. We want to eliminate this option. The vote of the voter should have priority over the career planning of the individual politician. Otherwise we do not take the voter seriously, we mislead the voter and we actually have too little respect for this voter.

During the discussion, Mr. Speaker, colleagues, there were interesting observations made of a legal and constitutional nature. In this regard, I would like to refer, in this plenary session, to an opinion of the State Council on similar draft decrees in the Flemish and Wallish Parliament. I refer in this regard to the proposal of decree 1547 in the Flemish Parliament. The State Council gave a positive opinion on this technique, stating that it was not the introduction of an additional incompatibility in order to make such a arrangement possible. I quote the State Council: “The proposed arrangement, in fact, provides for the loss of the mandate of a member of the Flemish Parliament, even before the simultaneous taking or exercising of two mandates. On the contrary, it aims to attribute a legal effect to the mere fact of being elected to certain legislative assemblies. In fact, the proposal contains a regulation relating to the expiration of the mandate of a member of the Flemish Parliament. In fact, the proposal aims to specify a case in which the mandate legally ends, without letting the person concerned choose between the mandate of a member of the Flemish Parliament or a member of another legislative assembly.”

The Council of State concludes: “Since the proposal cannot be adapted to one of the matters for which the decree-maker has constitutional autonomy, it must be concluded that the Flemish Parliament is not competent to adopt the proposal. Only the federal legislator may introduce such arrangements by law, adopted by special majority." The State Council therefore allowed these options.

Observations were made as to whether this violated the principle of the duration of the parliamentary mandate, respectively Articles 65, 70 and 117. These articles say nothing about the end of the parliamentary mandate. They are mainly talking about the maximum duration of a parliamentary mandate, about the collective end of a parliamentary mandate and not about the independence of the parliamentary member, which is more specifically regulated by Article 159 of the Constitution. In addition, there are other articles in the Electoral Code, in the Special Act on the Reform of the Institutions and in the Special Brussels Act that contain provisions that regulate the incompatibility of certain simultaneous mandates and thus may de facto and de jure terminate parliamentary mandates when one is elected for another parliament. In this regard, I would also refer to the judgment of the Arbitration Court of 26 May 2003, which stated that the double, simultaneous candidacy misleads and discriminates voters because they cannot estimate the useful effect of their vote. This also applies in this case.

So far, colleagues, a few legal comments made during the committee discussions. I would like to comment on the proposals and, above all, to respond to the comments made in the committee and, above all, to the additional muros.

Mr. Speaker, noblesse oblige, I would like to start with you. I would like to thank you for enabling the processing and voting of the proposals. I sincerely thank you for this. I would like to say this explicitly again here in the speech. I read after the rejection in the committee, which I, of course, as a Democrat fully respect and wish to respect, that you described the proposals as an expression of hypocrisy that only the opposition can afford.

Mr. Speaker, I ⁇ do not feel personally hurt that you call me a hypocrite from the opposition.

of course .

Mr. Speaker, it will be in your ⁇ five years as chairman of our assembly — I wish you many more years — not to forget that in the previous legislature not only the hypocritical opposition, but also the majority submitted similar proposals.

I regret that colleague Bacquelaine has left the assembly for a moment, because otherwise I could refer him to his proposals 718 and 719 which had exactly the same purpose, which had just the same subject as the proposals that we have to discuss here today. I believe that colleague Bacquelaine, as the chairman of a yet very important majority group, did not belong to the hypocritical opposition then — and even now. He may now be going to reject these proposals and shoot them away, but, Mr. Speaker, it was apparently when even already the majority did not escape — therefore not only the opposition — that actually this course of affairs could not.

The Chairman of the Committee was not alone. As a result, he was actually also supported by someone else who was not of the least: the then Flemish Prime Minister-President Patrick Dewael, now our Deputy Prime Minister. In The Standard of 2 and 3 March 2002, he gave a large interview. Why a big interview? Well, The Standard appeared then in a large format, in other words: also a big interview because of our current Deputy Prime Minister. What did Patrick Dewael say? I can quote him: “As a politician you always have the right to be a candidate. That is beyond doubt for me. But it is true that a politician should also give clarity to the voter. Let us make it clear that whoever is on a list and is elected must also hold that mandate.” Whoever is elected — said Patrick Dewael — must therefore also sit. He suggested a legal arrangement.

The president, a former prime minister, a vice prime minister who also does not belong to the hypocritical opposition, supported me in this. I also received support, colleagues, from the then party chairman of the VLD, Karel De Gucht, who at his oath here in the Chamber also motivated why he came to the Chamber: "Whoever is elected, must sit."

If I have the support of the group chairman of MR, if I have the support of the deputy prime minister of this country, if I have the support of the then party chairman of this country, then I could think with all humility: where is the support of the N-VA, our good friends — then already — of the cartel? We may even have violated your copyright, colleague Bourgeois, but you know that in politics there is no copyright. Nevertheless, our apologies for that. Even then we were already on the same line; we just didn’t realize it yet.

It can be located.

Mr. Speaker, with such widespread support for the bill, I naturally thought that its approval would be a penny flute.

At the VLD not only Patrick Dewael and Karel De Gucht, but also a third member proclaimed the same position. Colleagues in Parliament, three VLD members, each individually expressing the same position, that’s long ago. You have to look very far to find three VLD members who say the same. Mr. Speaker, that must have suffered from the time when the VLD was in the hypocritical opposition.

Who was that third VLD member? I will not mention his name yet, and the crown will not yet be revealed. However, he gave a press conference on 17 July 2003, in which he said that the figures would be looked at the number of successors in the Chamber. After all, the Chamber was only yet to be composed and 37 of the 150 members were already successors.

It will get worse.

We were here, according to him, dealing with a replacement parliament, with a parliament of political slaves. According to him, the main reason was that elected parliamentarians did not take up their mandate. That was a problem that we should definitely look at carefully.

Who was that member? Noblesse Oblige, Mr the President. That was you. You called me a hypocrite from the opposition after voting away the text in the Chamber — you also voted away. This is not a problem, Mr. Speaker. However, you proved exactly the opposite. The Chairman of the Party is asking for the word.

You cannot resist that.

Colleague Verherstraeten, you should know to which layers the chamber chairman is sometimes worthy. I hope it is not the chairman of the House, but Mr. Herman De Croo. I recommend you to read this week’s P-magazine. Then you will not be surprised that he also used such words about sitting or not sitting — I will not use the adjective adjective that you have used. I recommend you to read the interview not of the chairman of the House, but of Mr. Herman De Croo.

Mr. Leterme, I am also a politician. Fortunately, otherwise I ⁇ ’t be the chairman.

I have not yet read the interview in that magazine. It might have made my eyebrows even more frons. What I’ve seen is Villa Politica. I have to congratulate the creators of the program Villa Politica from fourteen days ago. I must honestly admit that they succeed in more than I succeed in. They at least succeed in provoking some members of parliament in our assembly to be honest, which I have failed to do.

I will, of course, not reveal the confidentiality of conversations in the walkways and the dining room, but honestness commands me, however, to say that many colleagues in this assembly, across opposition and majority, have come to me to confide that they really like those proposals, they do like them, and actually can support them, but that they cannot, do not dare, and should not approve those proposals.

Mr. Speaker, while in July 2003 you considered it an enormous problem that elected people would not sit, you now find it no longer such a problem. It was said that the Chamber would lose strong members, but you said that they would also join and have already joined. By chance, you mentioned two liberals. You mentioned first Mr. Dewael. We did not see him in Parliament because he soon became a minister. You also called Mr. De Gucht. He has only been a member of parliament for a few days, but that apparently did not get him so well. The system of successors is no longer a problem.

Mr. Speaker of the Chamber, allow me to comment on a hypocrite from the opposition. In the Netherlands, a few years ago, the television program "Who of the Three?" existed there were three miners Jansen or three ladies Peters who performed an entire broadcast that they were Mr. Jansen or Mrs. Peters. You should have been invited to such a broadcast at the time. We shouldn’t have invited three people. You alone would have been enough! One could have said, “Which of the three?” Who is Herman De Croo? What does Herman De Croo mean? What does the president know about what he says and what he does not say? I would like to thank colleagues Anthuenis, Van Campenhout and Vandenhove for demonstrating political honesty by publicly stating that they agreed. I also thank other colleagues who made comments.

Mrs. State Secretary Van Brempt, you stated that those proposals would be degrading with respect to the successors. They are not at all. Several persons, skilled politicians, have entered the House or another parliament through the succession system. This does not affect those proposals. You have cited yourself in all modesty as an example. I do not wish to even object to that. These proposals are something different than criticism of succession as such. One can enter the Chamber through the normal system of succession, and therefore skilled politicians can ⁇ derive from it.

Collega Lambert, now absent, argued that in politics it is actually a team game and not an individual game. I wonder why spirit and also sp.a approved the halving of the list vote at that time. It was just about the personalization of politics and not about the team.

Why would one want to abolish the attachment that one found unfair, when this does not mean a change for the team? Colleague De Coene was right. He said we are working with ourselves again. I do not oppose this. We are indeed busy with ourselves. However, we are also working with the voters when we discuss these proposals. After all, we must also show some respect for the voter and for the vote he gives. Colleagues, was it not purple-green that abolished the list of successors, precisely to give the voter more influence on the composition of Parliament? Then the successors were re-introduced and now the influence of the voters is actually not so important, as evidenced by the rejection of this proposal.

Does a politician who is a candidate and informs the voter in advance that he will not sit, do voter fraud? Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, I think so. How many people know that he or she has made those statements and that he or she will not sit? How many voters know who the successors are? Take the example of Karel De Gucht. When he took the oath here, he said that he would sit here for a year and then went to the Flemish Parliament. Two weeks ago he said he would prefer to go to the European Parliament. If Karel De Gucht doesn’t know it himself, how should the voter know it?

This is also about deontology. If we were to introduce deontology, of course, there would be no need for legislation. If, however, we cannot demonstrate deontology, if we do not follow the principles and are therefore compelled to make legislation that we ourselves do not want to undergo and do not wish to respect, how can we expect from the citizen that they have a civic sense, that they bear responsibility, that they take responsibility for themselves and for their family in their environment or at work or in their leisure time? Citizenship and responsibility are the necessary cement for building a democratic society. It is a matter of respect. It’s about respect for ourselves, but it’s primarily about respect for the voters and for the institutions. If you reject these proposals, you show little respect for the voters.

I will submit the decision of the committee on this subject to your approval or disapproval. Listen to Verba Manent.

Plus nobody can take the word. No other speakers can be registered.

Le vote sur les propositions de rejet de cette proposition de loi spéciale et de ces propositions de loi aura lieu ultérieurement The vote on the proposals to reject this draft special law and these bills will take place later.