No declared majority agreement, no more mayor, not yet a single recognized alderman’s name and yet a formal agenda for the municipal council of next November 4 where we clamor like Baron Samedi for know who will be able to enter the Kingdom of deficits. In the maneuver, no black magic, we recognize the paw of the voodoo master of free money, the mythological Philippe Close.
Because if this agenda, at the date of writing hereof, remains a perfectly anonymous administrative thought, we can bet that those responsible will have made themselves known by next Monday. In the meantime, you don’t have to be able to read tarot cards to guess the chubby little fingers of Namurois Close in granting these croquignolette sums, in particular to one of his many dancers in financial distress, I named.. . BME (Brussels Major Events), the flagship event organization in Brussels which deals with bankruptcy on a daily basis.
We know that after covid but already well before, Brussels, which was to become, in the mayor’s mind, a sort of international hub for trade fairs, meetings and other international shows, had already taken a turn for the worse.
Poorly sized hotel offering, disappearance of the Horeca at a good move pace, end of cars, drizzly climate, random fun… Immediately noticed, immediately decided, certain large operators suddenly preferred to find themselves in Barcelona rather than at Heysel. Without hope of return.
The general state of the Exhibition Centers and their lack of maintenance perfected a dilapidated image which also did not benefit the coffers of the semi-public operator Brussels Major Events (BME). From mini social plans reorienting staff to new missions such as large-scale vaccination, decorating Christmas windows or post-event cleaning, the good mayor Philippe has always managed to contribute some money taken from the city budget in order to water the bloodless coffers of BME and maintain “its” structure which it always hopes to see reborn from its ashes.
Checkout, checkout!
However “anonymous” it may be, the municipal council of November 4 is no exception and once again “saves” BME with funny subsidies: €20,000 for single parenthood day (sic), €55,000 to ensure cleanliness and waste management during the “Winter Fun” event (which has not yet started: to plan is to govern) or €51,500
to “cover its operating costs” (re-sic). With €126,500 until the next municipal council on November 18, that should cover the cost, sorry, the cost.
Hello, Philippe Bobo?
Mayor Close’s other favorite (well, if he is indeed reinforced in his functions), are hospitals. We won’t repeat the whole saga for you, but this is, again, a particularly loss-making line of business. For a change.
So much so that the city is forced to periodically vouch for the expenses of its hospital center. Solidarity guarantee from the Brugmann hospital against ING, a bank which, as we have seen in Wallonia, is slowly starting to take precautions against the political world: 4.184 million at 10 years and 8,865 million at 30 years. Thirty years? Political decisions clearly involve much more than our finances but also the future of our little children who, thanks to progressive ecologists, can now breathe pure air in peaceful meeting areas between 2 three-dates at the office. unemployment.
In 2022, we were already at 14 guarantees for 65 million, which the MR strongly denounced. The councilors of the time, undoubtedly future aldermen, Weytsman and Coomans de Brachène will be delighted to see that the obligations taken on by the head of the city never rest. Especially since in 2024, Saint-Pierre aspired to 5 million from ING and 20 from Belfius, always guaranteed by the city, without forgetting a “short-term” line of 10 million. That is, at a glance, well over 100 million in solidarity guarantees for hospitals. Is there a limit?
The prominent left
If we wanted to be teasing, we would say that this famous agenda of November 4 still comes from the so-called “current affairs” period and it is difficult to see the urgency of distributing, once again, a string of subsidies to non-profit organization as diverse as it is varied. Thus BellRefugee is allocated €819,000 for guarding costs relating to 2 sites where this “citizen non-profit organization ensures, within its means, an unconditional welcome (…) to exiles, migrants, seekers asylum seekers, new arrivals and undocumented, with full respect for the individual and their choices. »
How can we tire of seeing that public authorities, penniless, transfer funds, often significant, to private actors because these same public authorities are unable to manage, due to lack of resources, the problem they are outsourcing… In the meantime, the MR who said he wanted “take back control” will have a hard time taking back the rudder from the greedy hands of progressivism.
