The pro-Belgian association B Plus elected the Francophone socialist PS party as the "political disappointment of the year" for 2024. Historian Dany Neudt was awarded the prize for "political courage."
B Plus describes itself as a pluralist movement working for a federal Belgium. Since 2006, the management has awarded a prize for "political courage." The laureates are usually personalities who stand out for their attitudes or positions towards Belgian language communities.
They also elected the "political disappointment of the year." For 2024, that unenviable honour fell to PS, with B Plus pointing to the postponement by authorised Francophone Education minister Caroline Désir to impose Dutch as the first modern language in French Community education.
"Additionally, we noted during the election campaign in June that PS was not in favour of an obligation for pupils from French-speaking Belgium to learn Dutch as a second language." In 2023, however, Désir was awarded the prize for "political courage."
This time, that prize went to Dany Neudt, historian and former vice-president of the Flemish ecologists Groen. He founded the non-profit organisation Heroes of the Resistance. B Plus praised the attention he thereby drew to the Belgian struggle against the German occupiers during World War II.
