Filip Dewinter remains vice-chairman of the Flemish Parliament

Vlaams Belang retains Filip Dewinter as vice-chairman of the Flemish Parliament. Various factions asked the Antwerp citizen to keep the honor to himself after the accusation of espionage for China.

Five parties (CD&V, Open VLD, Vooruit, Groen and PVDA) asked Filip Dewinter on Wednesday to step aside as vice-chairman of the assembly. Documents published by Humo and Apache earlier this week once again focused on the activities that the Antwerp resident provided to several front organizations of the Chinese Communist Party and their Flemish local pacemaker/spy Chanchun Chao.

It was known that Dewinter organized activities for a number of Chinese non-profit organizations in the period 2015-2018 and also visited China at their expense. However, there was evidence that the purpose of the activities was political rather than cultural, as Dewinter consistently claimed. Moreover, it turned out that he received at least a fee of 3,000 euros and was reimbursed for all kinds of costs.

The various parties knew perfectly well that they formally had no leg to stand on. The deontological committee of the Flemish Parliament considered complaints in this sense to be inadmissible earlier this year. After all, Dewinter was part of the Chamber during the activities. Partly through Chao, Dewinter distributed thousands of face masks in 2020 during the Covid crisis. There too, nothing could be charged against him because of “no file”.

Sheep

The vice-chairmanship of the Flemish Parliament comes with a certain reputation. Willem-Frederik Schiltz, the leader of Open VLD, put it best. “We have an exemplary role. When it is clear that very questionable things have happened, that Mr Dewinter has maintained contacts with Chinese spies and has been paid for this, then I find that reprehensible. So I have no choice but to ask that you please honor that decency.”

That “appeal to moral decency” made no impression on Vlaams Belang. Party leader Chris Janssens emphasized that the public prosecutor’s office and State Security “exonerated” Dewinter years ago (in 2018). He criticized the “trial by media” and then the “trial by parliament just before the elections” and on the basis of “warmed-up so-called news”. Under no circumstances did Vlaams Belang want to appoint a replacement for Dewinter.

Parliament President Liesbeth Homans (N-VA) could only refer to the regulations of her institution. That gives her no opportunity to intervene. During the debate, Dewinter behaved like a sheep that sits still while it is being sheared. In her intervention, Hannelore Goeman (Vooruit) pointed out the core of the matter. “There is of course only one who can force Dewinter to resign by ultimately expelling him from the party, and that is Tom Van Grieken.” The chairman of Vlaams Belang refuses to do that.