Proposition 54K1474

Proposition de résolution relative aux missions de la Défense nationale en matière de travail de mémoire et de développement de la citoyenneté.

General information ¶

Authors

LE Georges Dallemagne
PS | SP Stéphane Crusnière, Julie Fernandez Fernandez, Karine Lalieux, Sébastian Pirlot, Daniel Senesael, Éric Thiébaut
Vooruit Alain Top

Submission date

Nov. 24, 2015

Official page

Visit

Status

Rejected

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

citizen's duties defence policy democracy armed forces resolution of parliament museum

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR VB

Voted to reject

Groen Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI PVDA | PTB PP

Party dissidents ¶

• Olivier Maingain (MR) voted to reject.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Oct. 20, 2016 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Wouldn’t a member of the government be welcome? Is it hidden behind the banks?

I refer to the written report.

A nation that forgets its past is condemned to revive it. For the PS, memory work is an essential task of the work of the National Defense, and more broadly, of the federal state.

Under the former legislature, during a debate on the First World War, the N-VA stated that the memorial duty was merely a tourist skill. Today, this party, once at hand, is fully implementing its program.

Conscious of this scandalous position, my party, long before this majority, had taken the initiative to draft strategic guidelines 2015-2030 for Defence. Among our five priorities, we recovered this memory. Therefore, on 10 November 2015, I, together with my colleagues, filed this resolution on the National Defense Mission in the field of memory work and citizenship development. We were also joined by colleagues from the CDH and sp.a, to whom I thank.

The defence should be a citizen actor, especially with regard to the younger. Memory, memory, is a wealth that must guide our civil and political actions. That is why, in these texts, we asked, among other things, that memory work be a priority of the future strategic vision, to maintain and modernize the Royal Army Museum. Should I remind you that the MRA is considered one of the three most prestigious military history museums in Europe? We called for the full use of the scientific and human personnel already present in these Defence institutions, rather than resorting to the private sector. We also requested to ensure a reform of the Institute of Veterans, thoughtful but above all concerted.

These requests, though simple but essential to the work of memory, were rejected by a bullshit of the majority, at the commission on May 20, last year, and I now understand why.

In June last year, Minister Vandeput finally released his strategic vision. The work of memory is mentioned only on a very small page of 144 pages. We would almost regret this since, in these tiny paragraphs, we are only talking about rationalization and sanitation. Read more about Privatization and Regionalization. It is true that we cannot blame the minister for not fulfilling his promises, since on July 20, last year, the government decided to create a new public interest body of category B, which merges the Royal Army Museum with other entities, and which has no other goal, but to privatize the Museum, its management, and even, in the long run, its collections.

I also quote Minister Vandeput when he affirmed on 31 May 2016 that "in the prospects of the EPP, the renovation and operation of the MRA will be requested from a private partner."

Furthermore, in our last commission, the minister made it clear that some collections, though owned by the federal state, would be entrusted to sites owned by third parties. The Institute of Veterans, on the other hand, simply disappeared following this merger. In short, there will soon be no more federal anchorage of the Belgian memory.

Then, an organigram announcing the decentralization of some of the fifty-year site’s flagship collections, such as planes and tanks, leaked into the press. My colleague Calomne himself worried, in a very moving way, during the commission of 5 October 2016, about the transfer of some parts of the Air and Space section of the MRA to Coxyde. So, not content with a privatization, one can fear a regionalization for the benefit, once again, of the North of the country and especially at the expense of the federal capital. The Minister, though defending himself, has repeatedly asserted to us that the work of memory relates either to tourism or to education, that is to say, two subjects that are no longer within the federal state.

Finally, as with the raising of the military retirement age, it seems that here too, the minister makes little attention to the consultation of staff before implementing his reform of the MRA and the Institute of Veterans. Here too, I mean as proof the discussion we had on 31 May 2016 about parastatals.

In conclusion, in the face of these knock-outs in our collective and national memory, I ask you, dear colleagues, to return this text to the committee and work on it. If, like us, you feel that the essential missions of memory work are threatened and you fear that the historic Defence Pole will soon undergo the same attacks as those that dispeled BELSPO, you can only support this text. The memory of the Belgians belongs to no one.

I turn to you, dear members of Mr. I hope you have finally been able to awaken your group to safeguard this national memory and the Royal Army Museum which is the most visible facet. It is good to ask questions to express your concerns in the long and wide; it would be much better to act in this direction and before it is too late, within the Prime Minister’s party.

Defense must continue, in good understanding with the federated entities, to ensure the transmission of memory to future generations and thus maintain the indispensable link that binds the army to the Nation for the sake of peace, a link broken today by the strategic vision of the Minister and the N-VA.