Proposition 51K1082

Projet de loi relatif au suivi de l'action gouvernementale en ce qui concerne les objectifs du millénaire pour le développement.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

March 23, 2004

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

International Monetary Fund UN Development Programme World Bank development aid

Voting ¶

Voted to reject

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

Abstained from voting

VB

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Discussion ¶

March 24, 2005 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I would like to speak about the Millennium Goals.

for a moment. I am looking for the reporter. I suppose that the reporter refers to his written report. of course . It is the document number 1082/1-4.

I have not read that report.

The report was signed on 17 March. The draft law dates from 3 May 2004. Amendments were submitted. The report dates from March 17 and it is the document 1082. It is very short, it contains three paragraphs.

I look forward to the report.

Mr Boukourna refers to his written report.

I do not have to appeal to the Rules of Procedure. The reporter must be here.

Mr. De Crem, look at the report and you will find that one must already have a lot of imagination to say something about it.

The Millennium Goals are so important. It has only been five years since we entered a new millennium. I don’t think we will experience the beginning of the next millennium, despite the fact, Mr. Speaker, that you have the longevity.

I would like the report to be presented. I would like to hear the rapporteur.

They tell me that Mr. Boukourna is coming.

Mr Boukourna may, of course, refer to his written report. Their

The report is only half a page long and I also note that the bill was unanimously adopted.

Generally, for a project of this type coming from the Senate, one refers to its report. I ⁇ ’t do it in his place, otherwise I would have already done it. I had just agreed to suspend the discussion of this project. In the meantime, Mr. Demotte has arrived.

I postponed the question of Mrs Govaerts for a moment to allow Minister Demotte to answer it. It was so agreed. Their

Mr. Minister, I know that you have been busy in the last few days.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, I have to formulate my question a little differently. I wanted to submit them to Minister Vande Lanotte, as the dossier of the Chineseists appears to have remained there. My colleagues questioned you on March 9 and you then answered that you ...

This is not done in the Chamber. The Rules prohibit this. I ask that appropriate action be taken and that the rest disruptors be removed.

Mr. Speaker, I can ask that it be done in the appropriate manner as you request and without the machage behavior to which some doorkeepers sin. I would let this be done very calmly.

Mr. De Coene, it is my responsibility and of no one else. I have said that this must be done in the appropriate way. (Tumult) Mr. Van den Eynde, you do not have the word.

Mr. De Coene also responded here. I remind him that a near-being party partner of him – former European Commissioner Karel Van Miert – when he heard the position of sp.a on Turkey, here on the same tribune has thrown down pamphlets against the placement of nuclear weapons in Belgium and subsequently has become Minister of State.

Mijnheer De Crem, ik moet u zeggen: "Let him who has never sinned throw the first stone!"I think many of you will not stone anyone!

Mr. Speaker, my question has nothing to do with the question about the Chineseists asked last week.

My question concerns the social status of the Chineseists who are recognized and who have a RIZIV number. They are requesting that a royal decree be published in the Belgian Staatsblad as soon as possible in order to be able to submit an individual application in order to enjoy the social benefits.

Not only the tens of thousands of rightful Chineseists, but also the insurance institutions become impatient and his requesting party that the royal decree be made in order as soon as possible.

Mr. Minister, you answered in the committee that everything was okay for you. You said then that you had good news, in particular that the draft royal decree was submitted to the Minister of Budget for approval. However, you also said you had bad news, especially that it has not yet returned.

The case has been filed with Minister Vande Lanotte. You said it will come back sooner or later. It is already reasonably late because before March 31 these people had to submit their applications, but they are in the impossibility. My question is whether Minister Vande Lanotte indeed blocked the file and whether after that question of 9 March to Minister Demotte he may still have taken steps to publish the royal decree in the Belgian Staatsblad. What time will the Chinese have to submit their application?

My last question, Minister Demotte, is more about the amounts. I would like to ask this question to Minister Vande Lanotte. In 2003 it was decided to give the Chinese 640 euros. They then asked for more. They requested 1,250 euros for 2004. I believe that only 649 euros have been entered in the budget. Can you confirm that? Can they get 1,900 euros by 2008 — because it was promised after 5 years — as state intervention? Can the Minister confirm me that they will receive 1,900 euros of intervention by 2008?

I will answer you, loco the Minister of Budget. I just heard this, ten minutes ago.

As for the problems. I am aware that the Royal Decree will not be published before March 31. This is the end date on which kinesiotherapists must submit all documents about their social status to the RIZIV. To avoid the problem, I will give instructions to the RIZIV so that, from the moment we receive the advice of the Council of State, a referral letter can be sent to all kinesiotherapists. This marketing letter will state that they will have three months, counting from the publication, to submit their documents to avoid the problem.

... in order for the year 2004 and they have three months to put themselves in order? Is it so? I must say that the Chineseists have been the head of Jut for the government several times and that it is not the first time that Minister Vande Lanotte delays a dossier of Minister Demotte a little.

I am referring to my written report.

Mr De Crem, you have the word in the general discussion.

Mr. Speaker, I will rely on what the Rules of Procedure allows me, to know that we can also interpell the reporter about the work. I have a few questions about the bill we are currently discussing.

Mr. Speaker, we do not understand a word of what Mr. De Crem says, just as we could not understand Mrs. Govaerts afterwards.

Mr. Van den Eynde, I know it and please apologize for this. Work is being done. I am not a technician. Maybe it would be better. We have already changed some microphones. You have seen it afterwards. The microphones become hypersensitive. These are probably “subsensitive.” The case is being studied and I rely on the technicians. Their

Mr De Crem, maybe you can speak a little closer to the microphone, so that Mr Van den Eynde can hear you.

We will put the microphones higher.

Mr. Speaker, I need to get a little bit into what the colleagues say. This step was made at the beginning of your presidency. It’s the length of a former ECOLO colleague, which you used as a pretext to say that the microphones don’t work. Normally, this should succeed. A lot of colleagues are still stumbling. Their

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say the following. How many times is it now that I have to say this about those microphones? It is unbelievable that no noise amplification is possible in this Parliament. Please solve this.

I informed the Conference of Presidents that a further in-depth study will be conducted during the first two or three days of the week following the Easter holiday.

Well, Mr the President. I hear nothing. I do not hear.

Ladies and gentlemen, listen to me.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to have a discussion on the Millennium Goals resulting from this draft. After all, it is ⁇ important. This was the subject of a proposal from a honored colleague of us. That colleague is so honored that she is now the chairman of the Senate. It is in particular a design by Mrs. Lizin. Ms Lizin has proposed that a parliamentary control of the implementation by the government of the Millennium Development Goals should be organised and that the government should be obliged to submit an annual progress report.

I honestly thought that it was linked to another proposal, namely the bill that Mrs. Lizin would have also submitted and aimed at establishing a parliamentary control over the implementation of the interventions made by the President of the Senate to the magistracy concerning the succession by the magistracy of certain judgments in judgments and judgments of courts and courts, and also to submit a progress report in this regard.

(Protests on the banks of the PS)

After all that has happened, it is gross from the PS party to intervene like this!

It is small. I don’t know what the Millennium Goals are about.

Dear colleagues, we are not in the office of the PS. This is the Parliament. "Electus electa populus est": we are all elected by the people; we are not appointed either by the president of the PS or by the PS office.

You will communicate here, in the name of my group, what you want to do. And if that does not please you, leave the room! But, une fois de plus, you say that it's more gross d'intervenir que cela! So, I will myself submit a bill, together with my colleagues, to make a parliamentary report on the interventions of the chairs of the House and Senate in judgments and decisions of courts and courts.

I return to that matter because I see that the reporter of that matter has made a number of comments in Parliament. The committee has submitted a number of amendments asking the government to submit a number of opinions in both legislative chambers. This is about the debt and the reform of the UN. It is, of course, about that reform of the UN that I want to keep my speech.

The reform of the United Nations is a ⁇ important matter. It is even so important that the Belgian government has proposed to nominate the chairman of the Senate – who was just at that time in the eye of the storm – for the position of Special Commissioner for Refugees; and also to nominate a VLD minister – due to the difficult balance between PS and VLD – for that same post. I think that when one talks about the reform of the United Nations, the credibility of that United Nations must come first, and that such ridiculous decisions should not question the entire functioning of the United Nations.

Finally, I would like to say, Mr. Speaker, that I have read a lot of interesting things here, especially about weapons licenses. You should well imagine that Mrs. Lizin’s proposal is about weapons licenses. It is about weapons licenses for which a kind of code of conduct is established, says that draft, which should exclude that weapons are still supplied to countries that are known to be not democracies, that they do not hold fair and open elections, and that they cannot pass the test of international standards in the field of human rights. What do I see? That just those who submitted that proposal managed to issue a weapons export license to New Lachaussée in French-speaking Belgium.

Finally, I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the report states that no other comments can be made in the draft law. Mr. Speaker, we and our group can only express our great indignation over the way the Millennium Goals have been addressed in this Parliament and in the political groups. It is a small piece of great shame.

Mr Boukourna, I give you the floor as the rapporteur.

I was looking forward to a question on “the Millennium Goals.” I have heard interpellations.

You would like to answer the question asked by Mr. of the cream?

and yes. I was waiting for a question about this report. I had the right to reflect on courts and courts.

The government is not there!

In fact, there is a small technical problem, the government is not there. You are right!

You must suspend the meeting.

I do not know where Mr. Demotte is right. He probably left for some reason.

I will wait a few minutes until Mr. Demotte is present.

There are tasks that even a minister cannot avoid. I know the minister is back.

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to say that I was waiting for a question from Mr. Crem about this report. But I realize that he talked about courts and courts, he talked about Ms. Lizin’s candidacy, he talked about weapons licenses. I simply rely on my written report because I have no answers to these questions and that is not the subject of this report.

Mr. le président, the issue of arms trafficking is included in the report. I quote: “... That every government bears the responsibility to control the weapons it holds on its territory, to buy, buy or trade the weapons it holds on its territory. In order to protect their citizens and the weapons they export, ... to respect international human rights law and international humanitarian law around the world, governments must urgently work together to control and limit the trade in weapons and the proliferation of weapons production and because a world without peace will never ⁇ the Millennium Goals.” Please please .

Then, however, the rapporteur says that weapons are not discussed in the report. In my opinion, the rapporteur is either blind, or he does not know his report.

Mr Van den Eynde, you will have the word in the general discussion.

Thank you very much for giving me the word. I am even more moved because you give me the word in the general discussion. After all, I have the impression that the statements on the draft law will be limited to the general discussion.

Mr. Speaker, we in Parliament are often confronted with legislative initiatives that come once, because it is fashionable to take them. These legislative initiatives are full of a kind of well-thoughtful piety, in which the initiators want to say everything at once, in which they declare themselves with much pathos willing to ⁇ a few goals and in which they speak with much sentiment about a number of things they want to ⁇ , especially about intentions.

Mr. Speaker, I do not apologize, but it is usually limited to that. I have often had the impression that the initiatives should be seen as a kind of entertainment and as a kind of occupation therapy for well-thought politicians.

This is clearly the case with the Millennium Law. Mr. Speaker, this is already more than clear from the fact that, when the discussion begins, the government does not even bother to be present. I can quite understand that the minister who serves here — so we must call it — will be dismissed at some point. I can understand all this. I can also understand that he cannot be permanently present. However, at the time the group chairman of the largest opposition party speaks in the debate, it should still be possible that a member of the government, whoever it may be, is present.

If he is not present, he shows that this occupation therapy, politics, has very little value.

When we read the previous text, this is very clear. One will continue to refer to these texts endlessly, in every discussion about any humanitarian problem that arises in the world. When it comes to development cooperation, there will always be someone who will use the barometer of the Millennium Goals.

We have since witnessed that we have rightly referred to the smuggling of weapons and the sale of weapons, about which this text is very clear, but that one does not even know that this is happening, let alone that one takes into account the consequences of it. What one does is always referring to it and always just saying that one must ⁇ those goals.

I think we should stop this kind of political initiative. Humility can be beautiful. Humility can be touching from time to time, but with devotion you get nothing in politics. Those who want to realize nothing and want to limit themselves to that piety, enter a very nice number, but no more is it.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to give a concrete element that is of course also reflected in the Millennium Goals. An element that must be established because the prevailing piety imposes it. An element of which well-thinking people should not doubt the punishment of condemnation to hell of political incorrectness. That is the notorious, holy, undisputed 0.7% standard in development cooperation.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question first to the ancients in this Parliament, to the real former warriors. I have only been here for fifteen years. This is too recent to be able to answer. This is not an attack on a political color or direction. I would like to ask them how many members of how many governments, with the crap in the throat and the tears in the eyes, have already declared that they would get the 0.7% or at least take a serious step to approach the 0.7%.

I think that has happened permanently for the last twenty years. These were governments of different political alliances. Sometimes we take a step in that direction. I give that grip. Mr. Minister, you can’t blame me, but we are at about 0.43% at the moment. That is only half of the goal.

Why have we not hit there? Well, first of all because nobody wants to reach that 0.7% because nobody really believes in it, but everyone feels obliged to regularly pronounce a belief in that sense.

It is even worse, Mr. Minister. I do not blame the government for failing to meet this standard. I blame you for not implementing your own program. That is another matter. I do not blame you for not reaching that standard, because for me you do not have to do so. That doesn’t have to be, because we have not known for a long time why it is exactly 0.7% that we need to get, because that is a taboo figure, a kind of sacred cow or a sacred house that should not be touched.

Moreover, when one speaks with people from the development cooperation sector, when one has a deep conversation with those people, then one learns that they too are not actually waiting for it. Regularly one should then hear that the problem is not so much in a greater funding as in a better organization of it. I have cited several sources on this subject more than once. I would like to highlight one here, because in your eyes it may be completely neutral and maybe even reliable. It is a French-speaking NGO. I want to give you your name, but not in public. A large French-speaking NGO told me that it is unbelievable that in the Netherlands one is so far, that they are there at 0.7%. You know, in piety the Dutch will always overtake us. “That I may remain devout, thy servant was all standing.” in devotion they will always be better than us. In the Netherlands they are at that 0.7%, but they don’t know what to do with it. For example, the French-speaking NGO was approached by Dutch people with the question of whether they could not use a few cents. You see, Mr. Minister, we are in the total absurdity. I would say, to refer for a moment to the French literature, we are in the kingdom of Ubu. You know, King Ubu ruled over a country that was completely absurd.

Therefore, Mr. Minister, I do not blame the government for not achieving that standard. I can only see that the government is participating properly in that hypocrisy, in that piety and in that well-thoughtful trouble. Consequently, Mr. Minister, the Flemish Belang group, which still proudly and proudly engages in the struggle for its own voters, will soon abstain. You cannot even vote against it, because it is not worth the effort.

I thank you for your attention.