On the history-laden heights of Blegny, before more than 2,000 assembled activists, MR President Georges-Louis Bouchez set aside the usual slogans to put forward a deeper narrative: that of a country which must relearn to believe in its strength.
Far from a simple call for tax cuts, his speech took the form of an electric shock, restoring optimism, pride in work and the need for unapologetic growth as an engine of progress. Faced with what he describes as a spiral of pessimism and uncontrolled spending, he drew a clear line: take responsibility, reform, and give breathing space back to those who create wealth, those who get up in the morning to work.
The President contrasted two visions of the country: that of resignation and that of ambition. And it is the latter that he chose to embody, calling for a collective surge to turn challenges into levers for action.
Speech by MR President Georges-Louis Bouchez
1 May 2026
Blegny - Mine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1iPrZgN_Dw
Good morning to you all,
Good morning to you all. I am so happy to see so many of you here on this magnificent site of Blegny. And it should be said Blegny, without the accent. The mayor explained to me that during the merger of municipalities, a mistake was made in the Belgian Official Gazette, as happens, and they added an accent on the E. So we must fight to say Blegny properly. In any case, that is the will of Jérôme Cochart, whom we can once again applaud loudly for meeting this challenge.
I am all the more delighted to be here given the history of this site. Some have told us that it wasn't really ours. I saw a socialist MP, almost with tears in her eyes, you can find the footage online, explaining that her grandfather was a miner. Well, that's convenient, Christie, because I am also the grandson of a miner! And I want to say that coming from a working-class background does not oblige you to social jealousy, does not oblige you to hate success, does not oblige you to class struggle. Working-class values are, on the contrary, those of work, of responsibility, of not complaining, of wanting to fight against welfare dependency. So yes, dear liberal friends, here in Blegny we are more than ever in our rightful place.
None of us here knows what it was like to go down so deep. You will have the chance to do so shortly, since more than 800 of you have signed up to go down into the mine. You will see that it is better not to be too tall, and just how compressed people were to go and work a whole day down below. None of us has experienced that, except one. There is someone here among us today, and I ask you to applaud him loudly. He started working here, on this site, at the age of 14, in 1955. He is an exceptional man.
(Testimony from Michel, recounting how he started working in the mine against his mother's wishes, so that she could stop working).
A thousand thanks, Michel! I really want to highlight one element of Michel's testimony: optimism. That is so lacking in society today. If you look at the media debate, everything is a catastrophe. Nothing is going right anymore. Yet we have never had so much comfort. It's completely mad. Many are responsible: trade unions, politicians, all the actors of the media world, sometimes the press too. Look at the number of exclamation marks in newspaper headlines. There's one newspaper in particular that specialises in this. It stresses me out. Exclamation marks are meant to mean something serious is happening. But when you have 20 exclamation marks in a day, it's the end of the world. We have to stop this. We must break with this miserabilist, dramatic vision. Yes, we have problems. Yes, we have challenges. But look at our strengths: the highest level of education in human history, the longest life expectancy, the highest level of shared wealth, being at the heart of Europe in a situation that is, after all, rather pleasant to live in compared to many other places in the world… We must carry this optimism. Because if every morning when you wake up you tell yourself things aren't going well, I can tell you that by the end of the day, they won't be. If, on the other hand, you wake up in the morning with optimism, then you can achieve great things, and that must be the message of liberals.
Of course, this isn't about naive optimism; we must work to nurture it. Working also means restoring a concept which, like optimism, has been completely forgotten: that of growth, without which our system cannot function. For at least 15 years, the political class has stopped talking to you about growth. Some, around Liège, Charleroi, Mons, even talk to you about degrowth. So let me give you one figure. Before this government began, the annual cost of pensions was €61 billion. By 2030, pensions will cost €79 billion. If you remember your basic maths, which clearly isn't the case for some of our political opponents, how am I supposed to bear a burden that is €18 billion more expensive in barely 7 years if I have no growth? How do I raise wages if I have no growth? How do I face the climate challenge and the transition? If I have no growth, how do I support workers? That is why the Mouvement Réformateur will put forward, at the various levels of government, a Big Deal for growth. Because in recent years we've heard a lot about the Green Deal. Of course, climate is an essential issue, but how can we finance this change without the financial resources to do so? Today, this growth can rely on abundant and affordable energy. Today, this energy is made up of more than 60% taxes. But we're told this is inevitable, that it's the international climate situation, we're basically told that energy is being made expensive so that people make the transition. Today, the situation of our fellow citizens is quite simple. You have a petrol car, petrol is expensive. You want to switch to an electric car? Tough luck, the car is expensive and so is electricity. This wealth will allow us to meet our challenges. It's not fashionable, some will criticise us for it, but we must reverse the strategic mistakes made over the past 25 years in energy policy. Energy is the foundation of our civilisation, our economic development and our wellbeing.
This growth must also help us tackle the budgetary challenge. We're told it's insurmountable. We have made commitments, made promises, particularly on purchasing power. This is not a mere campaign promise. We are working on it and achieving results. In a few days, the federal tax reform will be voted on. In Wallonia, the reduction in registration fees is helping to improve purchasing power. We will halve inheritance tax. We have decided to extend flexi-jobs and student jobs, which helps improve income. And of course, there's the famous €500. The PS came up with the slogan. I understand the impatience, I hear it. But we are in Belgium, things take time. The budget is not in good shape, and political discussions are certainly far too numerous and too long. But our determination allows us to overcome these obstacles. So yes, this tax reform will give money back while fighting abuse. But today I want to reaffirm forcefully: unlike our political opponents, the Mouvement Réformateur is not the party of welfare benefits, but the party of work.
As I said, we have 2 challenges: the budgetary challenge and the purchasing power challenge. Some analysts believe it is impossible to do both. Why? Because in Belgium, we've always done it the same way. When we had a budget gap, we raised taxes, taxes and more taxes. Today, we are no longer the only ones saying that our level of public spending is completely unsustainable. The rating agencies which have spoken out over the past 10 days have also found that our country is one of the countries in the world with one of the highest levels of public spending, at 55% of GDP. To what end? Do you think our roads are in better condition than in the Netherlands? Do you think our education is of better quality? Do you think our justice system is more efficient? Yet, if we scaled the Netherlands to Belgium's size, we would spend €60 billion less every year. Because in the Netherlands there are fewer political structures, because in the Netherlands there are fewer administrative structures, because in the Netherlands people don't cheat on sick leave, because in the Netherlands cheques aren't handed out just anyhow. So, ladies and gentlemen, let me put it very simply: if we want more purchasing power, it's simple. We need less State for more purchasing power.
I can already hear the left: you'll be treated worse, there will be fewer police officers, public services will no longer be accessible, insofar as they ever were. But less State means, above all, fighting abuse in social policy, such as fake sick leave. Three official reports from INAMI show us that, for the samples tested, more than 50% of cases are people placed on indefinite work incapacity leave when these people could return to a similar or adapted role. That is unacceptable. It is also unacceptable to have 3 times more courthouses than in neighbouring countries. It is unacceptable to keep having so many public structures and, in Wallonia alone, to spend €3.6 billion more each year than Flanders. It is unacceptable to make people believe that their wellbeing depends on maintaining a system which, in fact, simply serves to let certain political parties, as well as trade unions or health insurance funds, prosper. It is unacceptable, ladies and gentlemen, that in our country we have billions of euros of public money managed today by private, ideologically slanted funds. It is unacceptable, ladies and gentlemen, that we had to hand back €80 million to the trade unions. Do you know why? Because we don't have enough unemployed people. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Vivaldi government had decided, with Pierre-Yves Dermagne, a socialist, to give €80 million to their friends, because their friends no longer had enough unemployed people to manage. Who still doubts that unemployment is the business model of trade unions and sickness that of health insurance funds? How long are we going to keep turning a blind eye? That is where reforms must be made. Because I agree with the PS: we must take from the rich to give to the poor. I do like Robin Hood. But today, being Robin Hood means taking from the State to give back to the people, and those people are the workers.
Less state for more purchasing power must enable us to meet our budgetary targets. Today I hear Pablo from Charleroi. Because he's such a big fan of Spain. Have you noticed? Pablo, that's Paul. I call him Pablo because he talks about Spain all the time. Spain, that country he finds so wonderful, that country where the retirement age is 67, with no possibility of leaving earlier, that country where the minimum wage is twice as low as in Belgium, that country where corruption is present throughout the government, that must bring back memories for him. Is it serious to give media space to someone who told us 10 years ago that we shouldn't sign the trade agreement with Canada, the famous CETA, which today has brought in more than 2 billion euros for Wallonia? That same gentleman who was still saying in 2021 that nuclear power, and I quote, “the page had been turned”. Clearly, that gentleman didn't pick up the right book. Who made Charleroi what it is today? And let's be clear, because I'm tired of caricatures, I deeply love Charleroi. I love Charleroi so much that my son was born there. But I hate, on the other hand, what has been done to Charleroi. So frankly, when you drive your own city into bankruptcy, what legitimacy do you have to lecture those who must make up for 50 years of socialist mismanagement in Wallonia? 40 years of socialist waste in Brussels, and people expect everything to be resolved in a few months? I often hear comrades say to me: “but the liberals were always there, always with them, except once.” The one time they weren't with the PS, the budget deficit was reduced to -0.7. That was the “Swedish” coalition. I really invite you to go back to the press articles from that time, because at -0.7 we felt as though we'd taken banknotes and thrown them out the window. Today, to give you an idea of scale, we're at -5, not 0.5, 5, and that is not our record. I refuse to accept that. Who wanted, as he proposes today, to keep pumping in money without limit? Who refused to reform unemployment, as David Clarinval did? Who never wanted to reform the issue of long-term sickness? Who never wanted to reduce the state's lavish spending? Was that us, perhaps? Now, would you believe it, the latest fashionable joke, he's taken an interest in businesses and bankruptcy figures. Does anyone in this room think a business bankruptcy happens overnight? Today, these results are the results of previous governments, of an unfunded Walloon recovery plan costing 5 billion euros, of indiscriminate cash injections. Of the overly generous granting of the BIM status, of social tariffs handed out left and right… Because the state's money was never enough to guarantee its electoral strongholds. So yes, I tell you, it's true, in 14 months we haven't yet managed to solve everything. It's true that in 14 months of federal government and 20 months of regional government, we haven't yet managed to put everything in order. But I'd just like to draw your attention to one point. There are still 36 months left today. That means, for those who love football, we're only at the 30th minute of these governments' lifespan. There are 60 minutes left, and perhaps stoppage time too.
Ladies and gentlemen, what I want to tell you about this is that, once again, I understand the impatience and I too want things to move faster. But I am certain that the coming months will be decisive. And I already ask you to look at all the goals scored during these 30 minutes gone by, and above all to work so that the remaining 60 minutes resemble the PSG-Bayern Munich match, because after 30 minutes there were already many goals scored, and we're going to score plenty more.
To carry out this work, we're going to need teams. At the helm are ministers, are Parliament presidents. Before concluding my speech, I really want to highlight them. Because the situation isn't simple. Once again, they are courageous, they have the will, they take on their responsibilities. They put up with my calls every day. For that alone, they deserve huge applause. I'm now going to ask them all to join me on stage. We will also need every parliamentarian, every locally elected representative, mayors, aldermen and alderwomen, municipal and CPAS councillors, and above all each and every one of you. Be proud to be liberals!