Karel de Gucht - Life and Career

Life and Career

Born at Overmere, De Gucht was elected to the Federal Parliament in the general elections on 18 May 2003. He was a member of the Flemish Parliament 1999–2003 and a member of the European Parliament 1995–1999.

Although elected to the Flemish Parliament and European Parliament in the elections of June 2004, he decided to take up neither seat and instead he was appointed the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs on 18 July 2004.

On a trip to Africa in late 2004, De Gucht sparked a diplomatic row when he said that "there is a problem with the political class in Congo" and questioned their ability to tackle corruption.

In June 2005, De Gucht caused a minor diplomatic spat with the Netherlands when he referred to the Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende as "a mix between Harry Potter and a rigid bourgeois without charisma" in an interview with the popular Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.

In December 2006, De Gucht condemned the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust, organised in Iran.

For 2006, De Gucht was the Chairman-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

In a 2007 interview with Flanders Info, he said the following about the Lisbon Treaty: "The aim of the Constitutional Treaty was to be more readable; the aim of this treaty is to be unreadable The Constitution aimed to be clear, whereas this treaty had to be unclear. It is a success." (1)

In November 2008, while De Gucht was a minister in the federal government, he was accused of insider trading in the case of the near-bankruptcy and subsequent nationalization and sale of Fortis Bank. On 3 October 2008, his wife, Mireille Schreurs, and brother-in-law sold their shares in Fortis Bank after a governmental crisis meeting to deal with the precarious financial situation of the bank, hours before the public announcement that the Dutch arm of the bank would be nationalized and the partly nationalized Belgian and Luxembourg branches sold to BNP Paribas. An anonymous complaint was received by the Belgian Banking, Finance and Insurance Commission alleging De Gucht's wife sold €500,000 worth of Fortis shares. De Gucht acknowledges that his wife and brother-in-law sold their mother's shares in Fortis Bank on the date in question for a smaller amount than alleged, but they deny that any insider trading was involved. He also points out that he personally lost €85,000 as a result of the nationalization and sale, and that his son, Jean-Jacques De Gucht, and mother kept their shares in the failing bank. The Ghent public prosecutor ultimately decided not to pursue an investigation in the matter stating "there is nothing to indicate that Mr De Gucht encouraged his wife, brother-in-law or any third party to sell their Fortis shares quickly."

On 29 May 2009, he candidly classified his former party colleague Jean-Marie Dedecker as a libertarian opportunist in a TV interview on Flemish public television (De Keien van de Wetstraat).