The new prime minister of Belgium has been in politics all his life: in 2016 his mother told De Tijd magazine about the ‘wonderful photos’ of little Alexander and his sister sitting on a chair with a bored face at a political conference. to wait. “With a flag in your hand and a picture of Daddy pinned to your chest.”
“Daddy,” that’s Herman De Croo, a man who spent 56 years in politics, held various ministerial posts, and was chairman of the liberal party Open Vld. Precisely because he did not want to be in his shadow, the young Alexander initially chose a different path: he graduated as a commercial engineer, was active as a consultant and started his own company that gave advice in the field of property law.
But the blood creeps where it cannot go. “If you are born somewhere, then you get that,” said De Croo when he became a politician in 2009. “Especially when it is as passionately driven as politics.” In that year he was on the list for the European elections and was elected president of Open Vld – very exceptional for someone who has never held a political mandate. In this position, De Croo pulled the plug from the Leterme government in 2010, which led to elections.
In 2012 he became Minister of Pensions and Deputy Prime Minister in the Di Rupo government. In 2014, De Croo is Deputy Prime Minister under Michel, and holds the posts of Development Cooperation and Digital Agenda. When the right-wing nationalist party N-VA leaves the government in 2018, he will be added to the Finance Department. In the meantime, De Croo also climbs the barricades for women’s rights and writes the book The Century of Women, in which he argues for completely equal rights.
But Prime Minister? Last summer he didn’t think it was a good idea: his party had fared poorly in the elections and Open Vld was the seventh party in parliament. “As a prime minister without clout you are the mop of your government,” he told Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper. That changed during the long negotiations, and on Thursday the king appoints Alexander De Croo as prime minister of Belgium – that one major political office that his father never held.
