For several months, Georges-Louis Bouchez has been waging a political offensive against what he calls "alternative public funding" benefiting party-linked structures. In Sudinfo, he points out that decisions have already been made to eventually abolish subsidies for partisan youth organisations, as well as funding for parties' think tanks and archive centres under the guise of continuing education. For the MR President, this is only a first step that should open a wider debate on the coherence and legitimacy of the use of public money.
Bouchez stands by a clear line: no double funding for parties and their satellite structures. Public allocation, tied to election results, must remain the sole basis for political funding. If a party wishes to maintain a think tank, a youth movement or training activities, it must finance them from its own budget, without resorting to parallel subsidised channels. The MR President believes this requirement applies to everyone, including his own party, which must integrate the costs of its structures (such as the Centre Jean Gol or the Jeunes MR) into the Movement's budget.
In the article, he points to a series of associations and structures that he considers to be, in fact, partisan or too closely linked to certain political tendencies, while being funded by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. In his view, these subsidies can no longer be regarded as neutral or purely "socio-cultural" once they directly or indirectly fuel a political presence in public debate. This questioning, however, is meeting resistance, particularly from partner parties such as Les Engagés, who consider the matter closed following the budgetary decisions already made for 2026-2027.
Georges-Louis Bouchez, on the contrary, sees this debate as fundamental to the future of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation's finances. He poses a simple question: do we want to make efforts in priority policy areas such as education, or continue feeding a system of indirect public funding for party-linked structures? By putting pressure on these hidden "political subsidies", the MR intends to defend a more transparent, more responsible and more rational vision of the use of public money, and to put citizens and essential services back at the centre of budgetary choices.