With her white ears dangling from one ear and firmly tapping on her mobile phone, Flemish Minister of Work Hilde Crevits (CD&V) made an appearance at the Danish Ministry of Employment in Copenhagen this morning.
A meeting between the Belgian and Danish delegations on labor market policy was scheduled for 9.00 am sharp. But at 9 a.m., the Flemish government also planned a last minute Council of Ministers in the run-up to the consultation committee on the corona measures. Or how the corona outbreak even throws a spanner in the works as far as Denmark.
Painful contrast
Deputy Prime Minister Pierre-Yves Dermagne (PS), Flemish minister Hilde Crevits and Walloon Minister of Work Christie Morreale (PS) have been joining King Filip on a three-day working visit to the Danish promised land since Monday in the field of employment rate and labor market policy.
The contrast with the Belgian labor market is great. The Danish employment rate is much higher and Danes continue to undergo lifelong training. But today, the contrast between the Belgian and Danish corona measures is particularly striking.
In concrete terms: in Denmark, corona has been just a disease like any other since the beginning of September and there are no more corona measures. After using mouth masks on public transport, a corona pass in the catering industry, extensive testing and strict compliance with the rules, the Danes seem to have been spared a new wave of contamination for a while. The realm of freedom is definitely a fact in Denmark.
That presented the Belgian embassy with a choice: should the king in Denmark shake hands again, which is perfectly possible, or not? In the end, the Belgian delegation complied with the local customs: no mouth masks and shaking hands at will.
Not in class
But while the king and his minister are enjoying total freedom in Denmark, the Belgian governments, including prominent members such as Dermagne, Crevits and Morreale, have to decide again this afternoon about tougher measures in Belgium.
The unexpected decision by Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Open VLD) to bring forward the consultation committee from Friday to Tuesday, while many ministers are abroad and Flemish Prime Minister Jan Jambon (N-VA) even in Dubai, in any case led to the necessary nervousness. And a king who is not amused that his ministers are not quite on their toes today.
The bringing forward of the Consultation Committee is also very inopportune for Flemish Prime Minister Jan Jambon. He will be on a mission in Dubai until Thursday, where the Flemish week will take place in the Belgian pavilion at the World Expo.
His program is packed and hundreds of business leaders travel in his wake, but this morning Jambon had to make time to follow the consultations within the Flemish government from a distance.
Afterwards, Jambon was very annoyed and didn’t want to say anything. ‘Do you really think I’m going to say something here?’ he snapped at the journalists who had traveled with me, even when they insisted. ‘Can I still set my own agenda?’(Simon Andries, Matthias Verbergt)
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