Yves Leterme
Yves Camille Désiré Leterme is a Belgian politician, a leader of the Christian Democratic and Flemish party. He was the prime minister of Belgium from March 2008 to December 2008, and later from November 2009 to December 2011.
Leterme has also served as minister of Foreign Affairs, deputy prime minister and minister of Budget, Institutional Reforms, Transport and the North Sea in the Belgian federal government. He is a former minister-president of Flanders and Flemish minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. Despite his French name, Leterme is Flemish. He is fluent in Dutch, French and English.
On 14 July 2008, facing the imminent failure to meet a self-imposed deadline to enact "constitutional reform" consisting of further devolution of powers to the nation's three linguistic communities, Leterme tendered his resignation to King Albert II. On 17 July, King Albert, after holding a flurry of consultations with leaders of political parties, labour unions, and the employers' association, rejected Leterme's resignation. Instead, the King appointed a three-person commission of representatives of the linguistic communities to investigate how to restart the reform process. The commission was to report to the King by 31 July 2008.
On 19 December 2008 he offered his resignation to King Albert II after a crisis surrounding the sale of Fortis to BNP Paribas. On 22 December 2008 the King accepted his resignation, along with that of his entire government. He remained prime minister until 30 December, when Herman Van Rompuy was appointed as his successor. On 24 November 2009, it was announced that Leterme would once again become prime minister, succeeding Van Rompuy, who had been selected to become the first President of the European Council.
On 22 April 2010 he once again offered his resignation to King Albert II after a key Flemish party, the Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats, withdrew its support for the coalition government. An election followed in June, resulting in protracted attempts to negotiate a governing coalition. Leterme remained as caretaker prime minister, but on 13 September 2011 announced that he would leave the post by the end of the year to take up the position of Deputy Secretary-General at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. On 6 December 2011 Leterme was finally succeeded as prime minister by Elio Di Rupo, ending the longest run of a caretaker government in the developed world. The following day he was appointed to the honorary title of Minister of State.
Early life
Yves Leterme was born on 6 October 1960 in the city of Wervik in the province of West Flanders. He is half-Walloon, and grew up fluently bilingual. He studied law at the Catholic University of Leuven where he received a LL.B. degree in 1981 and then studied at Ghent University where he obtained a BSc degree in Political Science, a LL.M. degree, and a MPA degree in 1985.Career
Before entering national politics, Leterme served as an auditor at the country's Court of Audit. He then became adjunct and then national secretary of the Christian People's Party until he resigned to become a civil servant with the European Union. In 1997, he went on indefinite leave from that position when he was appointed Member of the Belgian Parliament. He has been a member of the city council of Ypres since 1995. He served as alderman of Ypres from 1995 to 2001.He was appointed to the Chamber of Representatives in 1997, elected in 1999 and 2003. After the defeat of the CD&V in the general elections of 2003, he succeeded Stefaan De Clerck as party chairman. In 2004 Yves Leterme became Minister-President of the Flemish government. Flanders has fared well during his term in office. Yves Leterme took a pragmatic course of increasing the economic dynamic and social wellbeing in Flanders. He has made the Flemish government into the 'investment government', focusing the investments on the infrastructure and logistics with respect to both the business climate and social wellbeing. To accelerate investment he has successfully encouraged the use of the PPP structures. Additionally, Yves Leterme's government implemented rigorous budgeting – his government started with a sizeable implicit debt in Flanders which has been reduced to zero as the result of his policies.
In the elections held on 10 June 2007, Leterme received 796,521 personal votes, leading his party to a landslide victory. This was the second highest number of personal votes ever in Belgium's national elections. On 21 December 2007, he became Vice-Prime Minister of Belgium and Minister of Budget, Transport, Institutional Reform and the North Sea. On 23 March, Leterme received confidence of the chamber as prime minister.
Controversies
Many French-speaking journalists have taken offence at Leterme's political opinions on the widely supported demand in Flanders for more regional autonomy. They consistently decry him for making what they say are provocative or erroneous statements.During an interview with the French newspaper Libération in August 2006, Leterme, who is bilingual with a French-speaking father, made a remark about the overall failure and refusal of French-speaking inhabitants to learn and use Dutch in certain municipalities, more specifically in municipalities with language facilities.
Most prominent Francophone politicians such as Elio Di Rupo and Isabelle Durant along with some Flemish politicians such as Pascal Smet and Guy Vanhengel objected to this remark. In the Flemish daily De Standaard of 28 August Leterme explained his words: "I am allowed to ask myself the question whether the lack of knowledge of Dutch is a matter of not wanting or not being able to."
A news report produced by the Belgian Francophone television company RTBF alleged that Leterme said in the Flemish parliament: "I don't need the King". According to Flemish newspapers, this sentence was taken out of context, because Leterme was talking about the creation of Flemish statutes : legislation approved by the Flemish parliament, unlike federal legislation, does not need the king's signature to become law. The Flemish Minister-President signs the decrees himself.
On one occasion, Leterme quipped that the only things common to all Belgians are "the King, the football team, some beers...". Upon being asked by a television journalist to name which event is commemorated by Belgium's national day, Leterme wrongly replied that it was the proclamation of the constitution, when the correct answer is the coronation of the country's first King, Leopold I of Belgium. Subsequently, he was asked if he knew the French version of the Belgian national anthem, whereupon he began to sing the Marseillaise, the French national anthem, instead of the Brabançonne.
Leterme caused controversy again in a December 2007 interview with the Concentra newspapers by denouncing the RTBF for having its own political agenda, being a propagandist for CDH politician Joëlle Milquet and being a relic of the past. Leterme further compared the broadcaster to Radio Mille Collines, which was a Rwandan propaganda outlet against the Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide, though he later mentioned he had only quoted what was said in political circles.
2007 general elections
On 6 May 2007, he officially launched his candidacy for the general election on 10 June 2007, leading his party's list of candidates. On election day, he received about 800,000 preferential votes, the second largest number of votes ever gained in the history of Belgian elections. This was one of the greatest monster tallies in recent Belgian history.Based on this personal tally, on the successful tally of his party, and on the general election tallies which saw progress for most parties making the strongest demands for greater Flemish autonomy, such as CD&V, New-Flemish Alliance and the new Lijst Dedecker, status quo for the left-wing Greens, and regression for the far right Vlaams Belang and parties making only modest demands for greater Flemish autonomy, such as OpenVLD and Socialist Party - Different. Leterme as formateur convened the negotiations to form a coalition government, negotiations which would turn out to be protracted and initially lead to a stalemate.
2007–2008 political stalemate
Yves Leterme was the favourite to become the next Prime Minister of Belgium following the 2007 General Election. From 16 July to 23 August 2007, Leterme led the formal coalition talks into forming a new government. But the negotiations failed over constitutional reform and on 23 August he resigned as formateur.On 29 September, Herman Van Rompuy, "explorer" in the coalition seeking process, presented his final report to the King. Later that day, King Albert II again appointed Leterme as formateur. On 7 November, his party took the initiative and got the Flemish representatives to vote on the most crucial aspect of the negotiations, the splitting of the electoral region of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde, a measure strongly opposed by the Francophone community.
Leterme again offered his resignation to the King on 1 December, after coalition talks failed to reach an agreement on several issues.
An interim government under Guy Verhofstadt was sworn in on 21 December 2007. In it, Leterme became deputy prime minister and Minister of the Budget, Institutional Reform, and Transport. He was anticipated to become prime minister in a new government in March 2008.
Belgium's political uncertainty further deepened when Yves Leterme was hospitalised on 14 February 2008. Rumours that he was suffering from hepatitis were formally denied by a spokesman, and it was later disclosed that he had suffered internal bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract. His duties as Minister for Budget and Institutional Reform were temporarily taken over by Jo Vandeurzen, the Minister for Justice.