In Eupen, before MR and PFF liberals gathered for the New Year's reception, Georges-Louis Bouchez delivered a speech combining a defence of freedom internationally, an assessment of the state of Europe and an appeal for the reforms carried out by the Arizona government.
He first paid tribute to the courage of Iranian women and men fighting for their fundamental rights, seeing in this a reminder of how fortunate we are to live in a liberal democracy and of the need to tirelessly protect freedom of expression.
The MR President then broadened the focus to the European level. In his view, the European Union can no longer settle for moral posturing if it wants to carry weight in the world: it must embrace full sovereignty, militarily, industrially and technologically. He warned against Europe falling behind in artificial intelligence, a field largely dominated by the United States and China, risking turning the EU into a mere spectator that comments without ever deciding.
Returning to Belgium, Georges-Louis Bouchez vigorously defended limiting unemployment benefits to 2 years, which he presents as a social justice reform aimed at putting work back at the centre of society and sustainably saving the solidarity system. He denounced the destructive effects of prolonged inactivity in certain neighbourhoods of cities such as Mons, Charleroi or Liège, and recalled that solidarity must be reciprocal: the community supports those going through a hardship, but everyone must contribute when they are able to.
The President also stressed the need to control public debt and redirect state spending. He defended reindustrialisation, maintaining nuclear power as a pillar of energy sovereignty, and streamlining our institutional structures: fewer ministers, abolishing the provinces, merging municipalities and simplifying public administration. In the same vein, he criticised the tax privileges of health insurance funds and called for them to be subject to the same rules as other actors, in order to fund a targeted tax cut for young workers.
Finally, Georges-Louis Bouchez addressed the institutional and identity question, reaffirming the intention to abolish the Senate while guaranteeing federal representation for the German-speaking Community, which he considers a full partner in a trilingual Belgium. He also announced tighter conditions for access to Belgian nationality, recalling that being Belgian is not only a right, but an honour and a commitment to respect a country among the most progressive in the world. He concluded by calling on activists not to apologise for being liberal, to defend the reforms on the ground, and to approach 2026 with happiness, courage and pride.
Find his full speech here
Good evening to all,
Guten Abend allerseits,
First of all, I would like to begin by highlighting the struggle of Iranian women and men. A liberal struggle, around the world, which is not talked about much in our media, which in my view reveals certain difficulties in our public debate. This is what is happening today in Iran.
Because some journalists will explain to you that this is a revolt against the high cost of living. That is to forget the uprisings of 2017 and 2022, and the courage of these women and men who in fact embody the utmost courage, to the point of being ready to die so that their country may know what we have known for more than 70 years now and which seems so natural, so ordinary to us.
I believe we must support this struggle first because it echoes the good fortune we have. Because it reminds us that this good fortune is never acquired for eternity, and that we must therefore never tolerate attacks on freedom of expression. And even if our ideas displease certain political movements or certain self-proclaimed antifascist groups, which themselves sometimes display fascist attitudes, we must always fight to allow everyone to express their ideas.
We must also support this struggle because one is not liberal for oneself alone. One is liberal if one wants freedom for oneself, but also if one wants freedom for others. Liberal philosophy is by its very nature universal. One cannot live in a liberal society if one believes oneself to be the only one entitled to benefit from its ideas.
Since our project aims to be universal, I really ask you to share this struggle, to let them know via social media. I have been contacted several times by members of the Iranian opposition who are waiting for this support, who are waiting for our politicians to wake up. I really ask you to wage this liberal struggle alongside the Iranian women and men, but, more broadly, alongside all the people around the world who hope to share our good fortune: that of living in a liberal democracy.
And when I tell you to be proud to be liberals, it is not by accident. It is the only societal model that has brought about the level of well-being we know today. Our country certainly has enormous problems, but never forget that it is undoubtedly one of the best countries in the world to live in, and remembering that every day may also allow us to engage differently in our struggle, whether civic or political.
The purpose of these challenges is also to be able to defend these principles. And to defend them, we must have the capacity to do so. Now we realise that the European Union today no longer has the capacity to defend its values. If the European Union is sincere in its desire to defend values and a project, it must then have the courage to achieve sovereignty. Today, the European Union has often preferred posturing rather than facing harsh reality.
Because yes, if we want to be able to spread these values, if we still want to mean something in the world, we must have an autonomous military power. We must have industrial capacity. I spoke earlier about Germany. An industrial giant like Germany, which today is experiencing a rapid decline of its industry, should worry each and every one of us, because there is an economic stake, and behind it also a matter of sovereignty.
Autonomy also in the field of artificial intelligence, which was discussed this morning at a Mouvement Réformateur press conference. This artificial intelligence will transform society like no previous industrial revolution. Do you know that today only 5% of global investment in artificial intelligence research and development takes place in Europe? 52% of these investments are made in the United States, 40% in China.
How do you expect Europe to still have a place in the world when China and the United States master all these technologies while we remain dependent to benefit from them? Being very clever at writing tweets to condemn Trump's attitude or to want to sanction China's will not help; we will simply have nothing left to say.
Ladies and gentlemen, these challenges sometimes seem distant, but they concern you. Today, in Parliament, we spend days talking about the price of chips, about whether chips will go up by 10 or 20 cents. But if Europe does not regain full sovereignty, if we do not address major challenges such as artificial intelligence, we will no longer be talking about chips, about kayaking, about well-being: we will be talking about survival.
So, please, if I may express one wish for this year, it is that we rediscover a sense of the major challenges, the major reforms, which go through Europe and, of course, also through our own country. Because Europe is not the others. Europe is us.
We have begun implementing these reforms. Particularly in employment, with what is generating much talk: limiting unemployment benefits to two years. This limit is presented by some as a great catastrophe. It so happens that I come from Mons. You may know Mons, a very beautiful city. You may know Charleroi, you may know Liège, you may know La Louvière. These are the results of unlimited unemployment benefits.
You only have to walk around certain neighbourhoods where, sometimes, the entire population has never worked in their life. You only have to look in certain streets where people have been unemployed for three generations. You only have to see the social and human damage, in terms of health, that inactivity can cause. So yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am extremely proud to lead a party that has put an end to an anomaly, one that led people to believe that solidarity was a cash machine and that inactivity was a horizon.
Solidarity must work both ways. We must of course receive help from the community when we suffer a hardship in life. But if we want to be able to receive that help, we must also be able to contribute when we are able to. It is a basic rule, a simple aim: to put work back at the heart of society.
These reforms are being contested. They are being contested in the streets. They are being contested on social media. But at Christmas, I read that a man from Charleroi who bakes bread, there's the baker from Charleroi and the butcher from Mons, said he would not challenge the time-limited unemployment benefit. That means they are actually not going to change our reforms. They are not going to challenge them. Why? Because these reforms are essential if one wants to give meaning to life.
So I ask them a question: why protest? Why smash things up? Why criticise? I expected them to tell me: "Well, we're going to bring the retirement age back to 60. We're going to make unemployment benefits unlimited again. We're going to let people retire at 55. We're going to increase subsidies and spending." They don't propose that. Because it's simply impossible. Because even they know it's impossible.
Because the day the coffers are empty, there is nothing left for anyone. And that is exactly what we are avoiding today. And what I want you to take away is that yes, these reforms are saving our social system. Because saving the social system does not mean emptying the coffers, it means making sure there is always at least a little left for the future. It also means ensuring something else: that our children have a future.
Today, you may not know it, but every child born in this country is born with a debt of between 50,000 and 60,000 euros. A baby that has just been born. Why? Because today we no longer redistribute wealth. We live off the fruits of debt. We create debt to keep living at a standard completely disconnected from our economic results.
And that essentially amounts, quite simply, to going to a restaurant, ordering champagne, having lobster and caviar, and then, at the end, calling your son or daughter and telling them to come and pay the bill. Is there anyone in this room who would think that's good behaviour? And yet that is how we live. That is how we live every day. And that is what we want to address.
To respond, it's not complicated, there are two approaches. The first is to boost growth. I spoke about industry: we must reindustrialise. And it is no accident that the MR has committed so strongly to saving nuclear power in our country. It is a matter of economic development, but also a matter of sovereignty.
This allows us to be less dependent on countries such as Russia, the Arab world, or even the United States, which remain an ally, but being an ally does not mean we always share the same views. And, you know, control is always safer than trust.
So, in that sense, this commitment, which was presented as a political quarrel, was actually a commitment to the future. And time has proven us right.
This commitment should, as I said, allow us to increase growth, but there is another challenge, which is to reduce public spending, and I will come back to that.
But of course, the left has another idea. They tell us we need to tax the broadest shoulders. Be careful: if you do a bit of weight training, you're already in their sights. So I tried to find out who these broadest shoulders actually are.
I looked around a bit, left and right. I see that for the left, it's sometimes an entrepreneur who might own two or three buildings, a few shares: that's very, very bad. And then I looked again and said: no, that's not a broad shoulder. That's someone from the middle class who works and has been somewhat successful. That's good, we should encourage that.
And I discovered, imagine that, that there are health insurance funds in our country with more than 6 billion euros in private assets. Then I saw their defence. They say: "No, no, these assets are a safety fund in case of difficulties with health insurance."
So I went back to have a closer look, because I thought: "Georges-Louis, maybe you were too quick." There is a nice address in Dinant, for example: they have luxury hotels, open even on strike days; they have stocks, bonds, savings.
Is it normal for private organisations, which receive a delegated mission from the State, to accumulate assets of more than 6 billion euros, made up, for example, of ski resorts abroad? You may have once gone skiing in a resort owned by one of Belgium's health insurance funds. Is that normal?
But I thought: at least if they pay taxes, it's not so bad, they've simply done well. But imagine, that's not the case. Because over the last four years, the health insurance funds have avoided 400 million euros in taxes.
How? For a simple reason: the law clearly states that when health insurance funds sell the same insurance products as a private company, such as DKV, they don't have to pay corporate tax.
So I thought: that can't be right. Not Mr Labille, the president of Solidaris, who lectures us from morning to night. He is, after all, a man of the left. Left-wing people, you know, have great moral virtue, moral superiority. They know what's good, they do good, they're generous. We stand on the side of the law, which is more complicated…
Well, imagine, it's even worse. Normally, non-profit organisations with assets of more than half a million euros must pay a 0.45% tax on those assets. Except the health insurance funds.
At that point I thought: this isn't a mistake any more, it's a blunder. The reality, as you'll have understood, is that the left-wing parties have done everything to protect certain players.
What we're asking for today is very simple: that health insurance funds pay the same taxes as everyone else. Not creating a new tax, not creating a specific tax: just the same tax as everyone else. That is equality before tax.
And why? To use those 165 million euros to lower taxes for people starting a job, allowing them, in their first year of work, to pay half the tax they would normally have had to pay.
Why? Because when you start a job, you often have to buy a vehicle, pay for clothing, a series of work-related expenses. Well, we want to give people a leg up and help them understand that it pays to work. We want to use these funds to give them a boost right from the start.
So I was surprised. Because I thought the health insurance funds would congratulate me and say: "Georges-Louis, you're right." We are people of solidarity, and so we will show solidarity with these young workers. Well, no.
Do you know what they did? They went to the newspapers to explain that they would actually be forced to raise people's contributions. So they signed a petition.
So I have two things to say. First, it's very strange, because when the left says it wants to tax the banks, nobody worries about whether the banks will raise their fees, for example the fees you pay every month. That's not a problem there.
But there's a second major point above all. We should remember: nobody is obliged to have a health insurance fund. And that's where the ambiguity comes from.
You have social cover that is guaranteed by the State. People think it's their health insurance fund that reimburses them, but the fund is nothing more than a useless administrative link, particularly useless in the age of artificial intelligence. To get your healthcare costs reimbursed, you could simply insert your ID card into a reader and automatically get the amount you owe, while the doctor is credited to their account. That takes a fraction of a second with software. All that machinery of the health insurance funds isn't indispensable.
And besides, if you don't want to choose a health insurance fund, you can join the only state fund that guarantees this.
So the idea that asking health insurance funds to pay what they owe would lead to an increase for citizens is false. This argument is used for a simple reason: it is exactly the same motivation as trade unions opposing unemployment benefits being limited to two years, because it would make them lose thousands of members overnight.
It's an argument to protect a business model. That business model is the business model of precarity, of illness. Because every time there's one more sick person, the health insurance funds get more money. Every time there's one more unemployed person, with management fees, the unions get more money.
And you'll see that in the coming weeks and months, this will provoke many more reactions. That's normal. A large part of their business and their funding comes from the number of unemployed people receiving benefits. You now understand why they're so nervous.
When people are aggressive, it's often a matter of money. That's unfortunate, but it's often the case.
So don't believe that the reforms we are making are inhumane reforms. On the contrary, they are reforms aimed at making our State more efficient. To make it more efficient, we must also, and above all, reduce the size of the State.
The State spends too much. Today we spend 55% of our GDP on public spending. The Netherlands does the same job for 45% of its GDP. And when I say "the same job", it's because I won't even venture to compare Wallonia's roads with those in the Netherlands, nor the speed of justice there compared to ours, nor the employment rate, which exceeds 80% in the Netherlands, against 72% in Belgium and 65% in Wallonia.
The Netherlands has the best European indicators, including the highest pension level, and yet they achieve this while spending proportionally less public money. How do they do it? It's not complicated: they have a simpler State.
They have a government. The number of ministers must be reduced. We have already started: there are 9 fewer ministers in governments formed with the Mouvement Réformateur between the previous term and the current one. But we need to go further, and we hope Brussels can lead by example.
Second point: we must abolish the provinces. That's the commitment made by the Walloon Government. That doesn't mean abolishing provincial services. The teacher who teaches in the provincial network will of course continue teaching, we need him.
But does that teacher really need so many provincial councillors? Does he really need a provincial MP above his head, on top of all the other structures?
We must also go further with the merger of municipalities and CPAS, but also, I say it, make progress on merging municipalities.
If all municipalities in Wallonia had at least 15,000 inhabitants, we could save 160 million euros every year. Of course, we'll need to refine the criteria, and I will launch an initiative with our liberal mayors on this topic. But at a time of digital convenience and increased mobility, thinking we must keep the same number of municipalities as in the early 1970s no longer makes much sense.
Finally, a last word on a topic that concerns you very directly: the abolition of the Senate. We must move forward and finalise the abolition of the Senate.
However, this abolition has an extremely negative and damaging consequence for the German-speaking Community: the loss of guaranteed representation at federal level.
I made a commitment to Gregor Freches, and he knows it. We have taken steps in the Senate, we're taking them in Parliament, I've raised it with the Prime Minister, and we will continue.
After the abolition of the Senate, we want to be able to establish guaranteed representation of the German-speaking Community within the Federal Parliament. You are, moreover, one of the most efficient entities in terms of employment, public management, education, and so being able to benefit from your expertise within the Federal Parliament will be a valuable asset.
As I said: Belgium is not two large communities, it is three languages. And this must be reflected in our institutions.
So we will continue this fight. I really ask you to mobilise around your representatives, around Sacha Brandt, around Gregor Freches. You can really count on the Mouvement Réformateur to move forward on this topic.
I won't take much longer. I just have one thing to say, because it's getting warm, and we've earned a little drink: we braved the snow.
I just want to say one thing internally. Our reforms are sparking an enormous amount of debate. But don't apologise. Don't be afraid. What we are doing is simply what we said we would do during the campaign.
We had promised to reduce public spending. We had promised to limit unemployment benefits in time. We had promised to strengthen security and reduce illegal immigration. We had also promised to strengthen the sense of belonging to Belgium.
That's why we will submit a bill to Parliament to tighten the conditions for access to Belgian nationality. Because today, you can fail your integration process and still obtain Belgian nationality.
So, our country must of course be an open country, a country that welcomes people. But it is also a country that must be respected. I would like to remind you, regarding this initiative, that being Belgian is not a right: it is an honour.
It means being part of a community, of a country that is one of the most progressive in the world, where the standard of living is among the highest, where we share a liberal project and ideal.
That is why this text is, for us, an important element, a signal that seeks both to reward the women and men who come to this country to build it, and to send a message to those who think Belgium would be a doormat to wipe their feet on.
So, ladies and gentlemen, as I said, one last internal word: have courage. Because of course, carrying out reforms is not easy.
You know, the best way to stay popular is to do nothing. We could easily have held power, more or less carried on as before, and told ourselves that everything would work out fine.
I don't believe that's the solution. It isn't the solution, because if we go into politics, it's because we believe we have a responsibility, to our fellow citizens but also to future generations.
I am also convinced that voters will recognise courageous, consistent and honest people. Because, you know, you can lie, lie, lie… It's true that something of it sometimes sticks. But time always proves the just person right. You cannot fool everyone, all the time.
I am convinced that over the coming years, by implementing our reforms, explaining them, being out in the field, because yes, ladies and gentlemen, even when it snows, you have to put on your snow boots, the campaign is not limited to the election period. It happens every day.
And today, our campaign is about convincing people of the merits of our measures. It's about explaining. It's about debunking fake news.
So, in 2026, be happy. Because that is, after all, the purpose of everything we do. We get up every morning with that ambition. Being happy is first of all an ambition. Be happy. Be courageous. And more than ever, be proud to be liberals.
An excellent year!