On the sidelines of the MR's New Year's greetings in Libramont, Georges-Louis Bouchez met a delegation of farmers and listened to their legitimate anger. The MR supports free trade but attaches equal importance to our food autonomy.
In Luxembourg province, agriculture was at the centre of concerns, as the debate on Mercosur was in full swing in Brussels. As President of the Walloon Parliament, Willy Borsus relayed the message from rural areas: “This message is aimed at the European Parliament, which must reject any agreement that would weaken our local producers. If our markets are flooded with products that destroy our industries, it will be a collective failure. On the institutional and economic level, we are also experiencing an unprecedented wave of reforms: valuing work and effort, unemployment reform limited to 2 years, lower registration duties, administrative simplifications, defence of nuclear power. Never seen before in such a short time.”
MR provincial president Benoît Piedboeuf welcomed activists with encouraging words to make the MR's project a reality. “People vote for men and women, not for abstractions, concepts or polls. It is the quality of our work that will keep us at the top of responsibility, not individual comments, not fake news, not verbal or physical violence, not denigration or corrupted social networks. We must remain calm and focused, attentive to our residents, our businesses, all workers, all self-employed people and farmers. We must continue to deploy solidarity for those who need it.”
Cédric de Buf, national president of the Jeunes MR, and Mathilde Otjacques, provincial president of the Jeunes MR, then spoke. “Here, in Luxembourg province, more than 20 young MR members are involved in municipal councils, in colleges or even at provincial level. And this is only the beginning. We are the largest political youth movement in the country with more than 8000 motivated members, overflowing with energy throughout the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and especially here in Luxembourg province. As young MR members, we refuse to endure, we refuse fear, we refuse to give up. The left has neither a monopoly on heart nor on morality. Solidarity has no political colour and humanism belongs to no one.”
Eléonore Simonet, federal Minister for SMEs and Self-Employed, answered questions from entrepreneurs: “This week I presented an SME plan with 89 measures grouped into 12 chapters for the benefit of our self-employed, so that entrepreneurship is truly seen as a genuine career choice, experienced with pride, and one can see a future in it. I kept three main pillars in mind: first, strengthening competitiveness with easier access for our SMEs to public procurement, because at present it is sometimes still too difficult for you to respond to a tender. You don't necessarily have the resources or the means. I also advocate easier access to alternative financing, because that is the fuel of our SMEs, and the removal of all unnecessary small taxes such as filing your annual accounts. The second pillar is administrative simplification. One in two entrepreneurs says that bureaucracy is the main obstacle to entrepreneurship. And the third pillar is strengthening the social status of our self-employed: extending maternity leave for self-employed women, introducing the possibility of partial invalidity status, and revising the calculation of social contributions, which will now be calculated monthly to better reflect your reality.”
MR president Georges-Louis Bouchez returned to the subject of agriculture. “Food autonomy is the ability to feed our population without depending on anyone. The farmers' anger is legitimate: we understand it and we are acting. Mercosur is a European decision and we must sign free trade agreements if we want to maintain European growth, and we must conclude them more quickly, because the tariffs imposed by the President of the United States and his desire to control South America restrict our companies' export capabilities. Nevertheless, we cannot conclude any partnership under any conditions. Today we ask our farmers to produce under extremely high standards, while accepting to import food products from much lower standards: this competitive distortion endangers our farmers and our agricultural model.”
Georges-Louis Bouchez then outlined the MR's concrete proposals: “We must enable our farmers to live decently from their work. That is why, as agreed during my meeting with them, the MR will table proposals on taxation from Monday, such as the tax exemption of CAP aid, to concretely strengthen their income. The situation is not a binary choice between rejecting trade agreements and saving agriculture: we must both save our agriculture and open new markets for our industry, but we must do so under the right conditions, with respect for our producers. To the farmers present in this room: you have our full support and our full respect. The MR is the party of people who work, and if there are true workers in our society, it is you.”
The MR president also addressed the topic of municipal mergers, a strong point in his New Year's speech. A sensitive subject, particularly in rural areas. “From Monday, I will launch an initiative within the MR that will first involve our mayors, then, province by province, all our municipal elected representatives, so that we can work together to define criteria to strengthen public efficiency, reduce state spending, and at the same time preserve the proximity of services for citizens. Because if we want to be sincere in our approach to lowering taxes, we must be equally sincere in our approach to lowering spending: budgetary responsibility and quality of public service must go hand in hand.”
The New Year's greetings tour ends on Sunday 11 January in Walloon Brabant.