Union pressures Vooruit to quit government talks over migration plans

Union pressures Vooruit to quit government talks over migration plans
Vooruit's chair Conner Rousseau (C) leaves after a meeting to discuss a possible coalition for the Federal Government, on Sunday 26 January 2025. Credit: Belga/ Nicolas Maeterlinck

The head of the socialist union ABVV, Bert Engelaar, has called on the Flemish socialist party Vooruit not to join the Federal Government coalition. It pointed to the Arizona migration plans, the strictest the country has seen.

The leaders of the five 'Arizona' parties (N-VA, CD&V, Vooruit, Les Engagés and MR) are in the midst of multi-day negotiations to agree on a Federal Government coalition. The aim is for a deal to be made by Friday.

However, Engelaar, who became General-Secretary of the union at the start of this year, has put pressure on Vooruit to reconsider its position, stating Arizona's migration plans are unacceptable.

"And yet it seems that Vooruit is willing to trade migrants‘ rights in exchange for a few socio-economic crumbs," he wrote on Facebook on Thursday. Migration is not a commodity, not a bargaining chip, "not a rag with which to wipe the tabletop of negotiations clean," Engelaar argued.

"Do you want to get into a government where the discourse of the far-right is not just parroted but turned into policy?" he asked. "The left-wing voter did not ask for this. We did not ask for the lowest common denominator with right-wing parties that see migration as the ultimate evil. We asked for a party that stands up for solidarity, not only within national borders but also beyond."

Stricter policies ever

Several migration experts including Pascal Debruyne (Odisee University) have said the current policies on the table constitute the strictest asylum and migration policy ever in Belgium.

The negotiations are looking to make family reunification more difficult, to get rid of a Belgian equivalent for the dispersal law and to reinstate border controls.

Debruyne said the leaked migration plans are suspiciously similar to those of the new Dutch cabinet. "And that while Vlaams Belang, the PVV's radical-right sister party, is not even at the table."

Engelaar has said Vooruit can still go back and decide not to enter the coalition.

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