Proposition 54K2809

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 29 octobre 1846 relative à l'organisation de la Cour des comptes en ce qui concerne le contrôle des listes de mandats et des déclarations de patrimoine.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Franky Demon, Vincent Van Peteghem
Groen Kristof Calvo
LE Catherine Fonck
MR Emmanuel Burton, Gautier Calomne
N-VA Brecht Vermeulen
Open Vld Katja Gabriëls
PS | SP André Frédéric

Submission date

Nov. 29, 2017

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

elective office administrative transparency Statute for Members of the Parliament

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA MR PVDA | PTB PP VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

March 1, 2018 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteurs are Mr Calvo and Mr Van Biesen, who refer to the written report.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, today, during the plenary session, here is the first and, in my opinion, the most important package of measures for adoption that we have agreed on during the meetings of the Working Group on Political Renewal, and that I am pleased. It is specifically about the extension of the legal framework around the mandate list and the asset statement.

At the start of the Working Group Political Renewal in February-March 2017, my party, the N-VA, launched seven proposals related to the topic of the mandate list and the asset statement. That happened in the cluster "transparency", which was then the first cluster of the work. This was done, among other things, on the basis of my bills, on the basis of proposals made by Senator Louis Ide during the previous legislature, as well as on the basis of my own oral questions addressed to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Justice.

Six of the seven proposals reached consensus. They are fully accepted.

The seventh proposal, in which we advocate for the declaration of revenues from public mandates within a given fork, was even extended to the detailed declaration of all revenues from those public mandates in full transparency.

I would like to talk about each of the modified parts. First, there is the extension of the mandate declaration. Since 1 January 2005, the ordinary and special laws of 2 May 1995 and the ordinary and special implementing laws of 26 June 2004 have been in force. These laws assume that a well-functioning democracy can only work with sufficient transparency. The enforcement of those laws should give the citizen the opportunity to verify where a political mandatar or a top official is represented.

The laws also require parliamentarians, cabinet heads, deputy cabinet heads, mayors, shapens, directors in intercommunals and certain top government functions to report annually to the Court of Auditors on their mandates and periodically also on their assets. All this should prevent conflict of interest.

Last year, by letter to the Working Group on Political Renewal, the Court of Auditors informed that there are between 7 500 and 8 000 reporting persons each year, who either submit a mandate list or a mandate list and an asset statement. This number increases significantly in the year following the municipal council elections due to the renewal of the boards of directors and the directive committees in the intercommunals.

Already in 2011 the N-VA’ers Louis Ide, Huub Broers and Liesbeth Homans launched a proposal in the Senate to require, in addition to the cabinet heads and the deputy cabinet heads, also the substantial employees of the cabinets of the governments to submit a mandate list. It was unanimously approved in the Senate in March 2013 and was transmitted to the Chamber, but it was not treated in the Chamber, the term had expired. In 2015, I submitted the proposal again.

The political importance of contentful employees is great. They negotiate on draft laws, royal decrees, ministerial decrees, draft decrees, decrees of regional governments and communications letters at least as much as elected politicians. I therefore find it logical that those persons also provide transparency on their mandates and fees.

In the Working Group Political Innovation, the majority and opposition political parties have jointly decided to deal with the law thoroughly. The extension to the experts and the substantive staff of cabinets was therefore an evidence for the members of the working group.

We also received accounts from, among others, Publifin, Publipart and Samusocial. Inspired by the disproportionate fees paid by those organisations, which, in addition, no one was aware of, we will now also bring much more transparency in the many companies and organisations in which the public sector plays a dominant role.

The applicants wish that members of the board of directors, directions and advisory boards of legal entities in which the government exercises a dominant influence should also submit a mandate list from now on. A double criterion is used. The obligation applies to the person who, by a decision of the government, forms part of an administrative body or who sits in an administrative body of a legal person in which the government or several public authorities together have a dominant influence. For example, the NMBS, the National Lottery, the Flemish Land Company and the local social housing companies, all of them now also fall within the scope of the new law.

Not only will politicians and top public sector executives have to submit a mandate list, they will also have to submit much more data. Today, a declaring person must only indicate whether the function performed is paid or not. The legislative amendment makes the statement much more detailed. Both for income from public undertakings and organisations and for income from private undertakings and organisations, reporting entities will now have to declare their public fees with the exact amount of wages and fees to the Court of Auditors on the basis of the tax bill they receive from the paying entity. They must also disclose their private income, though not the exact amount, but according to six categories.

There are also additional sanctions options. Since the standard can only be successful if it can be enforced, the Court of Auditors will be given more powers to act sanctioning against politicians who do not, incomplete or incorrectly declare a mandate. The current law stipulates that mandate lists must be submitted between 1 January and 31 March. If one remains in default, the Court of Auditors shall send a registered letter of reminder. This is an average of 1,500 registered letters, except in a year of municipal elections, in which the figure rises to 3 000. The Court of Auditors shall publish the lists by 15 August. Last year, the publication in the Belgian Staatsblad took place on 11 August 2017.

The website Cumuleo, actually a voluntary initiative that converts information published in the Belgian Staatsblad into a publicly accessible website, states that 124 people failed to submit their declaration in 2016. These persons can be prosecuted by the parquet, theoretically though. Although the legislature has provided that the declaring person who does not submit a mandate or asset statement can be fined for every negligence of EUR 600 to EUR 6 000, a response from Minister Geens to a verbal question of myself shows that this happens very rarely.

The Minister of Justice replied to me regarding the punishment, however, that in general terms he was in favor of sanctioning offenses that would not be punishable no longer by criminal means, but by civil or administrative means. I myself have been in favour of this for a long time. The proposal was already mentioned by the Court of Auditors in its annual report for 2014. The Political Innovation Working Group agreed to provide administrative procedures in addition to judicial prosecution to enable better and more effective enforcement. It is not at all intended that people should be pressed out like a lemon, but we want to ensure that the law is enforced.

Of course, therefore, the right to defence applies, as well as appeal procedures must be observed. The Court of Auditors will be able to issue a warning and impose fines. Intense politicians could then even be banned from being elected by the court, a ban that can last for a period of five years.

We will also modernize. We advocate for administrative simplification. In contrast to the extension of the scope of legislation and the ratione personae, there is an administrative simplification. The mandates will no longer have to be delivered annually on paper to the Court of Auditors, after which employees of the Court of Auditors manually overtype the data on a PC to subsequently make them public. The application can now be submitted electronically. The only one principle is also sanctified. Only once will one have to disclose his mandates to the Court of Auditors, after which it must be confirmed annually whether the data are still correct. If this is not the case, it is sufficient to adjust that by electronic means. This should ensure that the work for both the reporting entity and the Court of Auditors is significantly reduced. In this way, despite a wider scope, we still ⁇ efficiency gains.

Another novelty, which should ⁇ provide legal certainty, is the inclusion in the mandate declaration of the company number of the institution in which a declaring person exercises a mandate. Now, after all, the name use of the bodies in which a mandatar is sitting is not always consistently applied. I will give an example. I myself am the chairman of cvba De Roeselaarse Woning and I have mentioned that in my mandate list. My Roeselaarse colleague of the CD&V group is the director of the same company, but she has mentioned that under Roeselaarse Woningen vzw. You can check this on the Cumuleo website.

It is, of course, about the same legal entity in which my colleague and I are both drivers, but the name is indicated differently, undoubtedly without wrong intentions, but this can cause confusion. Therefore, the Political Innovation Working Group decided to add the company number in the future.

We also aim for greater transparency towards the citizens. We will no longer publish all that is known in the Belgian Official Gazette to wait for a volunteer initiative like Cumuleo continues. No, under the motto "forcing strange eyes", we will now also ask the Court of Auditors to clearly display the names of the declarants and their mandate lists with the corresponding fees on the website. It will also be shown who has not submitted their lists and declarations or who has submitted their lists and declarations incomplete. In addition, a link is placed on the Chamber’s website to this page on the Court’s website, so that through the Chamber’s website there is more awareness and transparency. This accountability also ensures that the legally provided publication in the Belgian Staatsblad is supplemented.

Do we do extravagant things? In the Working Group Political Renewal, there were undoubtedly many proposals that, in my opinion, were often revolutionary, overwhelmed, populist or exhibitionist. But what is presented here today for approval is ⁇ evolutionary, rational, reasonable and responsible, and it must also increase the legitimacy of our reforms.

In June 2011, Professor Marleen Brans of the Public Management Institute of the Catholic University of Leuven published the Transparency of rewards for high public office, a comparative study on transparency in the remuneration of legislative and executive politicians, top officials and judges in thirteen European countries. By the way, the professor sent relevant information on this topic to each group in May 2017. I will cite a number of passages and figures to show the importance of what is now ahead.

First, Belgium was one of the countries where finding the required information was the most difficult. Like Romania, we scored only 3 on a maximum of 7, while Ireland and Sweden scored the maximum score of 7.

Second, Belgium was also among the lowest scores in terms of the degree of active transparency. Active transparency means that information about fees is made public and accessible to everyone.

Third, Belgium also has few automatic mechanisms that promote transparency.

The study by Professor Brans showed that a number of countries have been very leading in transparency for just years. Sweden, the Netherlands and Estonia, followed closely by Hungary and Norway.

I have said that we are doing rational, responsible things here. I compare it to what is happening in the countries around us. They do at least similar things. In the Netherlands, information on the so-called public registers has long been available on the website of the Second Chamber. This includes a travel register, a gift register and a register of subsidiary functions, including the indication of any remuneration. The information from these three registers can also be found on the pages of the members of the Second Chamber for each member of Parliament. From my contacts with Dutch parliamentarians through the IPU and the Benelux Parliament, it shows that no one opposes this transparency and that this is even considered obvious.

The Dutch Municipal Law also stipulates that mayors, councillors and council members must disclose their subordinate functions. There is even a central register for professional data and subordinate functions of judges. However, it is unclear whether a publication obligation applies to remuneration of public sector representatives in semi-government companies or real public companies and for top officials. That is where we differ.

Also in the French Republic, parliamentarians are required to draw up their own declaration of interests and activities and submit it to the National Assembly. It was our cherished colleague André Frédéric who pointed me to this during the work of the Working Group Political Renewal. Most of the categories in that statement are mainly related to deontology and conflicts of interest. However, paragraph 10 also asks for an overview of the professional activities, whether or not remunerated, which the member of Parliament wishes to continue to exercise in France during the duration of his term of office. In France, it is even forbidden for a member of parliament to start a new profession during the current term of office. Nine out of ten MPs would exercise a mandate without having any other professional activity, with the exception of public mandates. I am talking of course about mayors, shapes, chairs of a social housing organization, and so on.

An article in Le Monde dated April 22, 2013 revealed that 240 of the 567 French parliamentarians would be the directors of a company. It was then mainly about public real estate companies, say, social housing companies, local agricultural cooperatives and public enterprises.

In the United Kingdom, since the Resolution of the House of Commons of 27 May 1974, Members of Parliament have been asked to disclose their sources of income in addition to their parliamentary remuneration. Until 1995, however, they were not required to give up any amounts. On the House of Commons website, a page is reserved for the Register of Financial Interests. This provides information on any monetary interest or material benefit that a member of Parliament may obtain and which can reasonably be expected to affect his actions, speeches or voting behavior. This web page shows very detailed information for the 21 legislative periods since 1997.

After being elected, a member of Parliament must make a first declaration within the month and subsequently notify any amendment within 28 days. The House of Commons register identifies the following ten categories of financial interests for which a member of Parliament must be transparent. First, betting and wages, on any individual payment of more than £100, and on any payment from a single source of more than £300 per year. Second, loans, gifts and other support from £1,500 for individual payments or from £500 for multiple payments. Third, gifts, benefits and hospitality, coming from the United Kingdom. Fourth, visits outside the United Kingdom. Fifth, gifts, benefits and hospitality, coming from outside the UK, from 300 pounds. Sixth, property as soon as it amounts to £100,000, as well as income from property as soon as it amounts to more than £10,000. Seventh, shares, as soon as one owns 15 % of the capital of a company, or has at least 70 000 pounds of shares. Eighth is variable. Ninth, employed family members who were paid at least £700 a year through parliamentary spending. Tenth and last, family members who may be employed in lobbying.

We have another surrounding country that is large enough to talk about it, Germany.

In Germany, the website of the Bundestag also provides information on the subsidiary activities and income in addition to the parliamentary mandate for each member. This is the implementation of the Parliamentary Act. Since 1972 there have been specific rules of conduct for Bundestag members. There are transparency rules and reporting obligations for donations, for gifts and for activities beyond the parliamentary mandate. Revenue from activities in addition to the mandate should be ⁇ as soon as it amounts to at least EUR 1 000 per month or EUR 10 000 per year, however by indicating which of the seven tables contains the gross annual income. Information can be found on the website of the Bundestag with the biographies of the Bundestag members.

Also in the European Parliament – we have repeatedly referred to this during the work of the Working Group on Political Innovation – there is, through Article 4(2) of the Code of Ethics, an obligation to disclose professional activities and income from them. The indication of income must be made in five income tables: unpaid, less than 1 000 euros per month, between 1 000 and 5 000 euros per month, between 5 000 and 10 000 euros per month, more than 10 000 euros per month.

The assignment of financial interests in the European Parliament shall also include information to be specified on the professional activities of a Member of the European Parliament during the three years preceding his entry into office in the Parliament, as well as on his participation in committees and boards of directors during the same period in a company, a non-governmental organization, an association or other organization participating in the practice of law. It also includes information on remuneration received by the Member of the European Parliament for the exercise of a mandate in another Parliament, any fixed remunerated activity he performs in addition to his mandate as an employee or as a self-employed person, participation in the boards of directors and committees and any external activity for remuneration including publications, lectures and advice where the total remuneration exceeds EUR 50 000 per calendar year.

The measures that will be implemented with the present legislative proposals, the two legislative proposals and the proposal for a special law, are therefore aimed at the surrounding countries and the European Parliament.

I have given a lot of explanations about the other parliaments, but this is really to show that on some points we are still going further or less far than in other countries. It is primarily intended to be more transparent than in the past.

With the innovations that these legislative proposals bring, Belgium goes on with active transparency. We provide more information than before. We make sure that the information is more easily visible to others. We make the persons involved more controllable by their superiors, subordinates and colleagues. We responsibilise the organizations that have public mandators represented in their boards of directors — the federal, regional and other government bodies — by allowing them to provide information themselves. And we provide a punitive stick behind the door so that transparency does not become a loose understanding.

My group and myself are very satisfied with the result. I would like to thank all the colleagues who provided consensus in the then Working Group on Political Renewal, as well as all the members of the Committee on the Revision of the Constitution, for the unanimous adoption of the relevant bills at the beginning of February 2018.

I have a good and a bad news. The bad news is that I will not be as brilliant as Mr. Vermeulen. The good news is that I will be shorter. I will not go back into the history of the country’s transparency. I’m just going to focus—if you allow it—on what has occupied us for a few months.

I would like to begin by thanking Mr. Vermeulen. Listen carefully, because it is not common for me to thank a colleague from the N-VA. Everything happens. Enjoy this moment! It is important to emphasize that during these ⁇ six months of work, it has not always been easy. I think that the chairman of the committee, Mr. Vermeulen, has disregarded his personal commitments to aim – and has achieved – towards a form of consensus on some of our concerns. I would like to thank him for the work done.

I would also like to thank all my colleagues. I also greet, because ⁇ this is the first time we see it in such an important way, the work done by the services. We had to concrete our ideas in texts, which were mostly drafted by the services of the House. I thank them.

Mr. Speaker, that said, it still took eight months between the formulation of our 66 recommendations and the placing on the agenda today of the first texts voted in the Committee on the Revision of the Constitution.

I insisted, no later than yesterday, that of these 66 recommendations, no less than 17 fall within the competence of the Governance Committee and the House Office.

Since then, the president agreed yesterday, we will try to realize them quickly because I can’t imagine for two minutes that the results we have achieved will not find their consecration before the end of the legislature!

Strengthening the measures aimed at improving the transparency of political life is essential, and this is the meaning of the proposals. We therefore fully assume, dear colleagues, our leading role in terms of consultation also with federal entities.

At the level of our assembly, are we completely satisfied in my political group? Not really, as we would have liked to go further in a number of devices, especially in terms of lobbying. We would have wished to extend this lobby control to the level of ministerial cabinets or go further on the code of ethics as well. I remind you, dear colleague Vermeulen, Mr. President, that this code of ethics has been on the table of the Commission for the Revision of the Constitution for several months now. I don’t know why we don’t end up approving this code of ethics, and I would like to go back to it.

At the beginning of the work, it was difficult for some members of the majority to demonstrate openness. I don’t know what happened, but over time, I think our contacts, our constructive positioning, could have made that at some point, syntheses could have been released.

The wisdom born of the debate allowed the lines to move. Because it is true that at the beginning, when we talked, for example, about the control of the financial sanction for the absence in the commission, it was said, "There is no need for this, it is useless."And other subjects were scary, such as the declaration of private mandates. Today, in the texts, we still find this obligation to declare our private mandates, or the income from a professional activity.

So there are advances. I think in particular of the 150% all-in with regard to special functions, the linking of parliamentary salary to work in committees, the creation of the register and the code of lobbying, the reduction of the salary of the chairman of the House, applied by the Bureau on the proposal of the Governing Committee already several weeks ago, the regulatory, ethical and technical measures to open our institution to the greatest number in order to improve our image.

The reform that is being submitted to us is of primary importance in this framework and marks a real breakthrough supposed to enable effective and accessible transparency. I had also submitted texts in this sense several months ago, which aimed at creating a public cumuleo. This is to enable all citizens to get acquainted with public and private mandates, as well as the professional activities of public officials, on the European model. The statement of mandate shall enable everyone to examine with full transparency the extent of private and public mandates and professional activities exercised by the persons concerned legally. This helps to identify possible confusions of interests.

This was more or less possible through the private. It is important to make an act in order for this control and publication to be carried out by a public body, in this case, the Court of Auditors. The latter is given an additional mandate. His first president emphasized the difficulty of taking on these new tasks. It was agreed, Mr. Speaker, that we would work with the Court of Auditors to measure the additional financial burden and cover it at parliamentary level. This will be done through the Accounting Committee. This consultation must now be implemented. It is not necessary that within six months one can say that a text for transparency was voted without giving the means to realize it because the Court of Auditors cannot assume it.

I would also like that, as is the case in the National Assembly, we modify, as soon as this mechanism is in operation, the website of the House to link it directly with the publications of the Court of Auditors, so that the person who visits our site can access directly to the statement of a person by clicking on his name.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vermeulen, dear colleagues, we can look forward to implementing the remaining 60 recommendations. We are approximately a year from the end of the legislature. We have to get to work. We will take care of it.

More than a year ago, the wage scandal in the intercommunal Publifin broke out. This case will be followed, unfortunately, by the revelation of too many polemics related to governance. These repeated affairs have surprised, indignated and even saddened some of our fellow citizens. In particular, we all remember the sad saga of Samusocial, in the Brussels Region, that of Siamu and, more recently yet, that of Gial, which will have nourished vivid anger and legitimate reproach on the part of all the citizens of our country. They are understood. Indeed, who of us has not been revolted or scandalized by such practices?

While the latter have taken a hard blow to the trust in our democratic system, they have also salted, shattered, sculpted the image that political action now returns to the eyes of a number of our fellow citizens. Unfortunately, amalgamas and generalizations have become common currency for the vast majority of the elected, who, however, have strictly nothing to blame. On the ground, we measure and feel, all and all here, the fatigue that often appears on the faces of some who would like to believe that things are going to change, without believing it completely anymore.

This conclusion, we all have done. Our neighbors, our friends, our acquaintances, the citizens we meet day after day are tired of seeing the same debates return continuously to the one of the topics, a thousand legs away from the heart of their concerns.

How to persuade, how to reassure those and those who, unfortunately, are living in difficult, even dramatic situations in our country, when at the same time we learn that consultant contracts are remunerated for years at vertigoous daily thresholds and that even firefighters are suffering from poor governance.

In the face of this situation, a profound reform of governance, a political renewal have become imperative to regain the confidence of the whole population. The message is clear. He was heard. Therefore, we are all here prepared for the task. Within the working group "political renewal", each exhibited his vision according to his sensitivity and reflections, otherwise often animated and in many cases, let us emphasize it, gathering, were issued.

After several months of work, we found ourselves on the essential: a substantial relationship, strong with more than 60 concrete recommendations, which often transcend the distinctions majority/opposition – left/right, in short, which transcend the partisan split.

We know that great principles irrigate democracy, make it live, make it vigorous, and, in the absence of them, their absence makes it gradually perish and deletes, finally, the bond that must exist between citizens on the one hand, and their representatives on the other.

In the first place of these principles are, of course, transparency and the requirement of clarity. It is precisely the need to strengthen this dimension that is the basis for the three proposals that are now subject to our vote. Improving the transparency of public mandates proved necessary, even indispensable, and this, for a long time.

I can only recall the two bills that were submitted by my group in March last year within this assembly, which aimed precisely to extend the principle of publicity to all public mandates as well as to all remuneration and compensation related to them. This requirement of public transparency, of course, is not of the sole federal jurisdiction. It is important to develop these principles of good governance at all levels and at all levels of power.

The municipalities, especially given their inherent ties of proximity with the citizen, ⁇ also have a responsibility in this collective approach and, like many other municipalities in the country, the municipal council of Ixelles, for example, adopted in March 2017, unanimously of the political formations that make it a motion aimed at developing but also to concrete a public cadastre of the municipal representatives within all public, parapublic structures but also their derivative structures.

While certain mandates are declared and thus made public, it is necessary to recognize that many of them still today escape the obligation to file a list of mandates with the Court of Auditors. This proposal therefore aims to increase the number of persons subject to this obligation. For example, members of board of directors and directors or advisory councils of public legal entities will now be compelled to do so.

The objective is clearly to avoid conflicts of interest, but also cases of questionable and unreasonable remuneration in relation to the quantity and quality of the work delivered. This is public money, and therefore the money of the citizens. The degree of transparency must, in this case, be maximum.

Similarly, this obligation is extended to the members of ministerial cabinets called "subject" and "non-logistic", who will nevertheless not have to declare their assets - not only in an interest of balance, but also respect for privacy.

In addition, I would like to mention another aspect of liability: the obligation to disclose the amounts of remuneration for each of its public mandates. Indeed, we recognize that at present, although the information on remuneration generally exists, it still remains widely scattered.

As already stated, another advance should be welcomed. Private remuneration received as a natural person subject to the legislation on mandate declaration will also be made public by means of a range system, similar to the one already in force for MEPs.

The Court of Auditors will be called to play a central role in terms of mandate transparency. Tomorrow, control will be strengthened, modernized and facilitated through an electronic filing procedure. This measure will facilitate the Court’s easier processing of information, but will also ensure transparency and control by citizens through the widespread publication of such information.

It must be frank to acknowledge that, if they are public, they are not necessarily easily accessible and readable by the general public. Thus, like what has been developed for many years, in particular through citizens’ initiatives, the public institution which is the Court of Auditors will publish them on its own website. This will promote a perfect visibility, readability and transparency of all information, but also a clear and accurate publicity of the processing of the representatives and, consequently, of their control.

This is a real revolution when you think of the current publications on the website of the Moniteur belge by means of a simple PDF document.

Finally, we wanted to strengthen the control corset, avoid abuses and strengthen the tools available to the Court of Auditors, with the establishment of an administrative procedure of sanction. However, we wanted to preserve a right to error with the introduction of a warning.

In conclusion, dear colleagues, these are important proposals that will significantly increase transparency, both on public mandates and on their remuneration, while ensuring easy access to information for all citizens of our country.

As for mandates remunerated with public money, I said, therefore coming from the contribution of all citizens, we must demonstrate total transparency. We owe it to the entire population.

The provisions proposed today are essential to improve and modernise governance, to strengthen democracy and to preserve or regain confidence and connection with the citizen. Without a doubt, this electoral year and the year that follows will ⁇ be an opportunity to try to restore the links spread on a new basis, to explain and do work of citizen pedagogy on all these concrete and positive measures for our democracy.

Dear colleagues, I thank you for your attention.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, there are three bills on our political renewal on the table today. They constitute the first legislative step following the 66 conclusions drawn in our Working Group on Political Renewal.

We therefore take a number of measures to make the Chamber again more resilient and more transparent, which was necessary in the wake of all scandals in the political world. We think of Publifin, Samusocial, Publipart and also Telenet.

The confidence in politics has been severely damaged. It is also important for our group that we try to restore confidence.

The first legislative proposals again provide for greater transparency. We will find out who will take what responsibilities. We will also find out what compensation will be made.

These are, therefore, immediately the main extensions we make to the legislation on mandate declaration. It is not just about politicians in parliaments, subparliaments and local governments. Also for the parapolitics, the government managers of institutions in which the government has the power to speak, and the substantial cabinet employees there comes an obligation to declare their mandates.

Furthermore, we get transparency on fees up to the euro accurately for all public functions and, of course, also in order of size for private fees. To do this, we will use the forks that are also used in the European Parliament.

In addition to these two major extensions, we also provide a number of additions.

First, with the mandate declaration we are finally entering the 21st century. After all, it is done with the submission of paper forms with mandate lists. We will be able to do this electronically from now on.

Colleague Nathalie Muylle has been advocating this for a very long time. He has also submitted several legislative proposals in the past.

It is important that it comes now. It ensures that citizens no longer have to leak out the Belgian Official Gazette or appeal to people who do so voluntarily, such as the website Cumuleo. All will now be available on the website of the Court of Auditors.

It is also good that we finally determine what administrative sanctions follow for those who do not comply with the law. In the past, there were no sanctions, which caused some not to declare their mandates. As of today, the Court of Auditors will be able to impose administrative sanctions.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, because the texts bring more transparency and restore confidence, our group will support them. We would also like to thank the Chairman of the Working Group, Mr. Brecht Vermeulen, as well as all the other colleagues of the Working Group for the work done.

However, the work is not finished! If we see what is happening today, what revelations there are in the city of Brussels, I can only make a warm call to the chairman of our working group to do further, to complete the fifty remaining bills with the amendments to the Rules of the Chamber in accordance with the decisions of the Bureau as soon as possible and preferably this spring in the same constructive atmosphere.

I will be a little more business and less exhibitionist than Mr. Vermeulen, who has done his job well as the chairman of the committee. I will also say less that the measures are revolutionary. For all clarity, I am satisfied with the 66 proposals. There are still some comments to be made, but all members have tried to work positively with each other and formulate suggestions. Three of them have been prepared and now put into discussion. We have agreed that everyone will sign at least one of the voostels, but not all, even if it is a collective work.

It is indeed a collective work. This is necessary, if we want a correct political culture. That means there is confidence between the elected and the voters.

Honestly, I regret that we need to develop regulations on this subject. In the end, it is about integrity and integrity, as they always say to me, you have or you do not have. If rules, norms and laws must be imposed for this purpose, then there is fundamentally something wrong. In addition to the legal and legislative initiatives on mandates and assets, which should provide transparency by publishing their list on the websites of the Court of Auditors and the Chamber, sanctions are also apparently needed. We are also ⁇ pleased that the private fees should also be made public. That transparency is important so that there is no food ground for scandals, semiscandals and sometimes even false scandals.

We have no problem with politicians being well paid for sometimes very important mandates. However, we are the requesting party to verify what efforts are made and whether they are proportionate to the compensation. We find this important because the mandates are paid with tax money and we must be able to respond to that.

In short, we agree with the content, as well as with the predetermined timing. My colleague of the PS already said it clearly, the Court of Auditors must be able to prepare itself to be able to organize things well. It not only takes time, it also requires resources. This was also explicitly requested by his representative during the hearing. We must therefore ⁇ take the suggestion of colleague André Frédéric to allocate sufficient resources to the Court of Auditors.

In our view, many more measures could have been taken, including in connection with lobbying and in connection with the declaration of mandates by cabinet employees. But there is a compromise.

The SP will therefore approve the three bills.

Mr. Chairman, colleagues, I will be a little shorter than colleague Vermeulen, a little less enthusiastic and a little more business, but still a little more enthusiastic than colleague De Coninck, because I am happy with what is here.

I just read another newspaper headline about our Political Renewal Working Group: "The mountain has given birth to a mouse." I have always been nuanced about the results of the working group. For us, there must have been some extra things. Some conclusions may have been much sharper, but substantial steps have been taken. This is the first product of the working group and ⁇ the most substantial and relevant.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us not underestimate what is here. It is not revolutionary, but it is a major breakthrough in terms of transparency, mandates and fees. Colleagues said that integrity is important. That is correct. However, one cannot fully incorporate them in laws, decrees and decrees, but at least as important as personal integrity is the aspect of transparency, which makes matters discussable. Matters that may still be legal, then become the subject of debate, so that they may eventually disappear from our political culture and our political landscape.

What is presented here is important and relevant. It is a big step forward because, as colleagues have already said, it involves an expansion of the number of persons and functions that need to be transparent about their mandates. That is important. Not only do politicians in the public forum have an impact and make important decisions, there are also other key political actors who have an impact, who decide matters and who must therefore be subject to a number of provisions. Expanding the scope is important. That is a first point.

I come to a second point. Some colleagues have proposed it as a digital revolution. It seems to me rather that we are doing what we should have done yesterday, in particular making mandates and fees available digitally. It is strange that until today there is a volunteer initiative that must do for us. One must scroll in the gigantic pdf of the Belgian Staatsblad to discover more about it. The provision of this information is therefore very important. The Court of Auditors, and indirectly the Parliament, is the best place for this. This is a second, important breakthrough.

Third and most substantial, becoming transparent of and being about private mandates and fees. Our group has pulled the car hard for this. Today everyone seems enthusiastic. Without wanting to throw a stone, I must say that this enthusiasm was not always there. It took a long time before this came out of the bus. It has even been exactly a year since our group submitted that list of proposals in the midst of the working group. Today we take that step.

We are inspired by the European system. This seems to me important. Several scandals have been mentioned by name. Know, colleagues, that with what is now ahead, those scandals can in principle no longer occur. With this system, we would have known what was happening in Samusocial and what our House Chairman still whispers and speaks out after his hours. I think this is an important breakthrough. It is also a response to the cause of our work.

This does not, of course, end the work. I look at our president, who is by far the most sympathetic N-VA’er. It is dangerous for you that I say this. I apologize for it. I must not be too clear about the fact that we agree well. I mean it though. All madness on a stick, you have tried to do this in the right way. It was not an obvious task. I would like to encourage you to help speed up the rest of the work. After all, there are still a lot of decisions to be made. In my opinion, we should not deal with this.

Another word about the work. There has been a lot of criticism and skepticism about the fact that the Working Group Political Renewal has met with open doors. This was rejected by many colleagues as a total absurdity. I see colleague Van Rompuy knocking. I know he was one of the critics.

Colleague Van Rompuy, if the Working Group on Political Renewal had met with closed doors, I am convinced that the European system would never have come there. It was only through the will of a number of political groups and external pressure that this eventually succeeded. It is one of the last decisions added to the decision menu.

I would like to say this about the work. I also think that we should gradually finish the work. Even after the approval of all recommendations, the work is not finished. I think there is still a lot to be done to modernise our political system and to engage the citizens more.

I do not sit under chairs or benches that I think this is an important day. Of course, I would like to thank the colleagues who have contributed to this.

Mr. Speaker, it was my colleague Francis Delpérée who participated in the work in the committee, which I thank.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say in a few words that things have nevertheless improved at the level of the Working Group on political renewal. It took a bit of mass, a bit of rounding the angles. From time to time, there was a little pressure. We ended up resulting in a series of decisions that would then be put into music and transformed into bills.

I will not go back to the content. Both have already expressed themselves. The aim is not to resume the debate that has taken place before. However, three bills are being considered today, which I welcome. But, in the essence, these bills constitute only a few small elements, if one wants to have a coherent whole, but also finalised well before the end of this legislature. We need to speed up the time a little.

I would like that we can now continue to move forward on the remaining texts so that they can quickly be discussed in plenary session. It would be a shame that at the time of the election campaigns, of possible musculations on one side or the other, some texts go into the trap in the end for the wrong reasons. I would really like to be able to move forward on this issue.

Finally, I will conclude my speech by saying that, if one can elaborate all the laws of the world, it is, at a given moment, in politics as well as elsewhere, a personal behavior. It is only if the latter is irreproachable that the politician will be able to regain the trust of the citizens and return its credibility to the political mandates. This is a personal message that can be addressed to everyone, including me.

Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief because my colleague Calvo spoke of gold and I will not go back on what he said.

I would like to intervene on a point that is, in my opinion, the central element in terms of advances that can be found in this text. Public salaries could be known, even though it was very difficult to go and get them. This was not the case for private salaries. The real advance of this text today is to make transparent for the elected, for those who have a public mandate, the supplementary remuneration they have coming from the private. This is the advantage of the European system for which we have long pledged in commission. As colleague André Frédéric recalled, there was opposition to this suggestion. But at some point, things have evolved positively.

and the light!

The Light, the Holy Spirit, etc. I am not going in that direction. I simply see that there has been an evolution, which I can only emphasize positively, and I thank all the colleagues who have been able to take this step.

If we support and vote this text today, it is because there is this progress.

An agreement is an agreement. It must be a compromise. We had made other proposals to go further on this subject. I will only vote on amendments that are purely technical for the reason that an agreement is an agreement, even if we wanted to go further on a number of dimensions.

I have submitted an amendment. I look at the President for that purpose. This amendment is true to the report of the commission and allows to gain two months from this element of transparency, so that we are not two years later publishing the income related to the year T minus two months. Our proposal is to take advantage of the fact that all the tax sheets are brought on June 30 and, at that time, to stamp on it the deposit date, so that you can earn two months in total.

I would like this amendment to be seen as technical and faithful to the report that says “as soon as possible.” Political amendments will not be supported. That is why I ask for this technical look at our amendment.

Finally, I would like to thank the departments for their work, a little different from that of the other committees. Isn’t that Mr. Secretary? It was a real work of contribution, help and expertise, including the documentation service that we regularly requested.

Mr. Deltour and his colleague were also very active and helped us find the right compromise at the right time. The president helped us on the method, including during technical discussions in his office. And I would like to not emphasize the immense contribution of the experience of colleague Mr. Frédéric in this kind of work. I thank you.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, my group is obviously joining the authors of the bills to highlight the importance of these first advances, in application of the 66 recommendations approved by the group "political renewal". It is true that we have sometimes expressed differences within this group on certain aspects, either technical or more political. It is ⁇ not on these proposals that we will know the most differences. And the opposite! We may talk about it again when we have other bills to consider in the coming weeks.

Undoubtedly, we were very favourable from the beginning of our work to strengthen the Court of Auditors’ powers to demand greater transparency for mandate, wealth and now income statements. As Mr. Nollet said, this is undoubtedly the major advance of this bill. These are practices that are already in place in other countries or in the European Parliament. What was implemented in the European Parliament imposed on everyone because it was difficult for some groups to fight here what they accepted in the European Parliament. This was the useful and effective precedent to convince a few more recalcitrant representatives.

The Court of Auditors now has no negligible powers. We will discuss this at the time of implementation, but I have a few questions about how the Court of Auditors will be able to exercise these new powers. She herself says very clearly in her opinion that she will need a personal and logistical reinforcement. It will be necessary that, very soon, our assembly – since it is us who vote the allocation to the Court of Auditors – specifies the increase of the funds. I dare hope that the special committee of our assembly, in particular responsible for examining the accounts and budgets by allocation, will be able to formulate proposals very quickly to enable the Court to assume its new tasks.

I make a second reserve. Sooner or later, we will have to complete the legal system. While the Court of Auditors itself was reluctant to impose administrative sanctions for breaches of the new obligations imposed on the different representatives covered by the bills, the idea that imposing administrative sanctions was within the competence of the Court of Auditors remained.

It is known that there could be controversy on this aspect a fortiori because the law does not determine the "tariff" of administrative sanctions except to say that in case of recurrence, the amount of the administrative sanction is tripled. However, the amount is not specified in the law. I am afraid that there will be a legal debate here.

I recall that in French law, financial sanctions are very heavy on the administrative level since, in their system of declaration of property and income, the sanctions can amount to up to €45,000 of fines accompanied by a criminal sanction of three years of imprisonment with possible deprivation of civil and political rights. This will be a debate that we will hold during the consideration of other bills.

It seems to me that the most effective sanction is the defeat of civil and political rights for all mandatory officers who, surely after recurrence, fail to meet their obligations of transparency in their declaration of mandates or income and property.

I am hopeful that our legislation will see an evolution here too. I will submit texts for this purpose, if necessary, because I wish not to give again the impression that politicians are giving themselves the means to escape the sanctions imposed by the non-compliance of their obligations, which is even more devastating in the eyes of the public opinion when it constitutes that those themselves who have seriously failed to fulfill their obligations, too often remain in the exercise of their functions in full impunity. It is impunity that is undoubtedly the most revolting for the citizen.

I will end with one word. Sure, we are required to strengthen the legislative arsenal in the face of the events and scandals we have known, but I have always considered ethics as a personal requirement of which some know the limits they have to spontaneously put on their power. I will always keep this formidable formula that my professor of administrative law, the very eminent professor Flamme, taught me, who said to us, “Powers are duties.” If all mandatory officers would sometimes remember this short maximum, so relevant, and if each could be aware of what his duties are in the exercise of his functions, we would ⁇ not today have to impose by law new obligations on the charge of mandatory officers.

Mr. Van Hees, you are asking for the word but, normally, and in accordance with the provisions of the Rules, I cannot give you the word. However, I propose to close the incident by telling you that it really needs to be better compliant with the Regulation.

I will send you, and to all the leaders of the group, the statistics. PTB representatives are really the worst students in the class. Yes, but the incident is closed. You have the word.

Thank you Mr. President. I will not react to your comments, but we will send you a mail that will put things up and point out the differences in treatment that we consider quite unacceptable. But I will not argue at this time and will only intervene on the proposals submitted to us.

And finally! It would have taken the insistence of the opposition and above all a pressure of the angry population, rightly, on the privileges of the political world, to arrive at this proposal that provides for the publication of the amounts of public and private remuneration of mandatory officers. I remember that in the working group on the political renewal, there were parties, the N-VA, the liberals, who refused this transparency on private remuneration, seeing all sorts of vices like voyeurism and I do not know which other tricks. But in the end, we see that they agree to sign this proposal. I suppose at some point they realized that their position was defenseless towards the population and their own voters.

While this proposal is ⁇ going in the right direction, it is yet too little ambitious. I will make three criticisms to this proposal.

First, why make a distinction between public and private mandates? For the first, it is the exact amount that must be mentioned, while for private mandates, it is a rather rough range, i.e. 1 000 to 5 000 euros, 5 000 to 10 000, 10 000 to 50 000, 50 000 to 100 000, and above 100 000 euros, the amount rounded to one hundred thousand. Why not simply publish the exact amount? I think that, here again, we see that in the parties that were most reluctant to this transparency, there remains a remnant of this fear of transparency.

The second criticism addresses the problem of control. The problem is that during the hearing of the Court of Auditors within this working group on political renewal, the Court itself indicated to us its reluctance, its lack of resources in relation to the task of control that is thus imposed on it.

It is a matter of means, but the very design of its mission disturbed the representatives of the Court. That is why the PTB advocated, as it exists in France, the creation of a High Authority for political transparency that would devote itself entirely to this task and would have the means required for the qualitative leap of control that we need. It must be admitted, at the moment the controls are virtually non-existent. As its representatives explained to us, the Court of Auditors’ control of property is not to check whether there is transparency, but to check whether the envelopes are well sealed. This is the opposite of transparency.

So this is my third and main criticism: we are talking about mandate and asset declaration, but the expansion of transparency concerns only mandates. However, heritage is important in the struggle for transparency and against corruption. GRECO, the anti-corruption body of the Council of Europe, clearly recommends the publication of the patrimony of political representatives. Its 2014 assessment report on Belgium recommends that “the system of declarations clearly includes income, various asset items and an estimate of their value, regardless of their forms, including those held directly or indirectly in Belgium, as well as abroad, as well as liability items, with an update of information in the course of the mandate” (page 19 of the report). The GRECO therefore clearly advocates the publication of the heritage of each mandatory. Furthermore, it further recommends that "the various statements, including on property, as completed, in particular with income information, be advertised and made more easily accessible via an official website" (page 22).

The PTB submitted a bill, from the beginning of this legislature, in the Kubla case. Our MR colleague cited a series of affairs, but he forgot the one where the MR’s responsibility was flagrant, even though it is as much in affairs as that of Publifin. The case concerns Mr. Kubla.

It is known that the MR is ⁇ involved in the case of Kazakhgate. I have the impression that there is a selective memory on the part of our colleague Calomne when he quotes the different cases that justify such proposals.

This bill that we have made, we reformulate it on the basis of amendments that are introduced in the proposal that is submitted to us today. We will then see how the different parties in this assembly really defend transparency in political matters.