VRT CEO rules out new collaboration with Bart De Pauw: “That was not the aim of the discussions”

The documentary series was already on the VRT broadcast schedule at that time and was removed last week. “We only became certain late in the process that Mr De Pauw was serious about his apology,” Delaplace says.

“At a certain point we thought that it was necessary to remove the series from the broadcast schedule for a while to give the start of the conversations every opportunity. That was our assessment at the time. We indicated that this was an error of judgment and that we should have contacted the victims much earlier,” Delaplace adds a mea culpa.

Ultimately, the CEO did indeed reverse the decision to postpone the documentary series this week. In any case, a lot of criticism arose from that postponement, within the VRT itself, in the broader cultural sector (with a harsh open letter) and in politics.

Delaplace’s position was questioned. But he is not thinking about resigning: “In recent days it has become apparent that the Flemish government and the board of directors of the VRT retain confidence in me. It is not because we made an error of judgment, for which I have personally apologized, that this is the must mean the end of a very valuable project. It would be a shame for that project to plummet due to one mistake,” the CEO concludes.