Flemish Minister-President Jan Jambon (N-VA) once again assured Sunday that his polemical remarks about a refugee family who had been able to buy a house thanks to the retroactivity of family allowances had at first instance been kept by another person, a participant in the negotiations which led to the formation of the Flemish government. “They are neither mine nor anyone from N-VA,” he told the private TV channel VTM.
These remarks, made during a conference in Hasselt, according to the daily ‘De Tijd’, had been strongly criticized at the end of December by the opposition, but also by the president of the Open Vld, Gwendolyn Rutten, partner of the N- VA within the Flemish regional majority. Ms. Rutten had denounced “an outing on an urban legend of the far right”.
These statements are not the essence of the matter, but if “they have offended, I will take them into account,” said Mr. Ham on Sunday.
“As head of government (Flemish), I want to assemble the team, I don’t need to have an argument every day,” added the nationalist minister-president.
He said that the remarks about a refugee family who had been able to buy a house thanks to the retroactivity of family allowances were “an extreme example that someone gave at the negotiating table”.
“The gist of the matter is that the system of retroactive family allowances for asylum seekers is a system that all the partners in the coalition want to end,” said Jambon.
He also reaffirmed the wish of the N-VA to participate in the next federal government “if the program is acceptable” in the eyes of the nationalist party and stressed that new legislative elections would not solve anything.
The two royal informants, Georges-Louis Bouchez and Joachim Coens – who are respectively presidents of the MR and of the CD&V – are doing “good work”, underlined Mr. Jambon.
Finally, he assured that he had guarantees from his two coalition partners (the CD&V and the Open Vld) on the maintenance of a strong Flemish government if the N-VA did not go up to the federal level.
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