In Libramont-Chevigny, before a packed Halle aux Foires for the MR's 2026 New Year reception in the province of Luxembourg, President Georges-Louis Bouchez called the anger of the farming community "fully legitimate", denouncing farmers crushed by some of the strictest standards while Europe imports products that do not meet these standards, and calling for mirror clauses or a reduction in charges, as well as fiscal measures such as the tax exemption of CAP aid to allow the sector to earn a decent living from its work.
He placed his speech in a European context marked by crises and dependencies, calling on the Union to move beyond the "comfort of posturing" to regain its military, energy and industrial sovereignty, a condition for truly defending its values.
He placed this fight within a broader vision of budgetary responsibility and solidarity, defending the limitation of unemployment benefits to 2 years as a cultural revolution that puts work back at the centre, and recalling that today's debt is tomorrow's taxes, while denouncing certain tax privileges such as those of large mutual insurers in order to fund a tax cut for those returning to work.
On security, the MR President defended the strict application of the "polluter pays" principle, requiring vandals to repay damages or carry out community service, and called for a more systematic deportation of convicted illegal migrants, reaffirming that Belgium must remain welcoming to those who respect our rules, learn our languages and work with us.
Finally, he embraced political and media pressure as a sign that the MR today embodies the strength of change, expressing 3 wishes for 2026: courage, happiness and pride in being liberal, before calling on Luxembourg province activists to stay mobilised on the ground, in municipalities and businesses, to explain the reforms and win people over.
Find below the full speech by Georges-Louis Bouchez at the MR's New Year reception in Libramont-Chevigny
Good evening, good evening everyone, thank you for being here.
And today this takes a particular turn, because this morning I was told there would be a storm with an enormous amount of rain, and so on. I thought, that's not going to help people get here tonight. Then I was told it would be a snowstorm. I thought, that really won't help. And then I was told that the motorway was blocked in both directions, and even the surrounding roundabouts. So you are true fighters. You are fighters for freedom. You absolutely wanted to be here tonight, so I hope the buffet lives up to your determination, because I am truly delighted to see so many of you despite these circumstances.
I mentioned farmers, but before that I would like to talk about the European Union, because the two are linked. If your journey today was a bit complicated, remember that it's nothing compared to the state of the world. We are in a world undergoing profound change and, whether we like it or not, the institutions born after the Second World War, the way of operating born in the mid-20th century, no longer set the rules today.
We are in a new world and we're trying to keep operating in the 21st century with the institutions and way of working of the 20th. That cannot work. We absolutely must change, evolve, and spending our days saying that everything is the fault of the US president, the Russians or the Chinese won't improve our situation. As liberals, what's fundamental is above all to take charge of our own destiny rather than spend our time complaining about circumstances. What the European Union must do today is guarantee its sovereignty. That is the essential challenge. Because I mentioned condemnation, but it's true that if you follow the tweets of a European commissioner or a minister, what will he do? He'll spend his day explaining that the US president is a problem, that Arab countries and Russia should respect human rights, that China should stop spying on us and potentially being an enemy. The problem? We are totally dependent on the United States for our security, totally dependent on Arab countries and Russia for our energy, and almost exclusively dependent on China for our industry.
So you understand, ladies and gentlemen, we cannot simultaneously lecture countries we need. We cannot be sincere in the effort to spread our values globally if we are dependent on entire regions of the world that do not share them. What the European Union must do is leave the comfort of posturing to face up to the harshness of reality. Yes, to guarantee autonomy in defence, we must invest. We must have planes, we must have technology, we must build this industry. We must also accept that if we want industries, there may be some noise, some constraints, perhaps even a bit of pollution. But believing that relocating pollution to China in order to consume its products will save the planet is at best naive, at worst hypocritical.
Yes, thanks to the action of the Mouvement Réformateur and in particular of Mathieu Bihet as minister, we saved nuclear power. When we started this fight 5 years ago, we were told once again that it was a whim of Georges-Louis Bouchez wanting to annoy the government, as if I get up in the morning with the ambition of taking blows all day. If we fought so hard for nuclear power, it's because having nuclear energy means advancing towards energy sovereignty. It means having the means to produce the energy that underpins our entire way of life. If you moved here today, it's thanks to energy.
If you're sitting in a large hall, that's thanks to energy. If you work, that's thanks to energy. There is not one of your actions, except perhaps the love you have for your loved ones, that is not powered by energy. So yes, that was fundamental. There may be more mischievous minds who... But that requires energy, natural energy. We didn't need energy stimulants. It depends on age. And it wasn't the youngest who applauded, so you see. But as I was saying, these challenges are fundamental. And within this autonomy, there is a fourth one that we have today, but which we risk losing if we continue on this path: food autonomy, agricultural autonomy, the capacity to feed our population without depending on anyone. That is why farmers' anger is legitimate. We understand it and we are acting. You'll ask me, but why Mercosur? Mercosur is a European decision, but beyond that, I don't want to be hypocritical with you.
We must sign free trade agreements. That is essential. It's essential if we want to continue having European growth. We must sign these free trade agreements much more quickly than we had planned. Why? Because the attitude of the US president, who with his tariffs is gradually closing off our companies' export capacity, and his desire to control South America too, forces us to conclude partnerships quickly. Nevertheless, we cannot conclude just any partnership under just any conditions. And today we must acknowledge that we have a major problem in Europe. That is, we ask our farmers to produce to extremely high standards. But at the same time, we accept importing, and therefore having our populations consume, food produced to lower standards.
So today, ladies and gentlemen, the choices are clear. If there is no mirror clause, that is, the obligation for products we import to meet the same standards as ours, then we will have to review our standards. Not to endanger the population, but simply to fight against excessive standards, against administrative burdens. We will also have to allow our farmers to earn a decent living from their work. That is why the Mouvement Réformateur, as I committed to in the meeting that preceded this, will from Monday put tax-related questions on the table. For example, a tax exemption for CAP aid so that our farmers can live decently from their work. Because, as you will have understood, 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. We must do so under the right conditions.
And I would like to say to the farmers present in this room, and repeat what I have already told you, that you have our full support and our complete respect. Because the Mouvement Réformateur is the party of people who work. And if there are true workers in our society, they are farmers. They are the ones who get up every morning, who never take holidays, who stay in their fields for entire days, who on top of that must be accountants, must be health experts, must manage economic challenges, must be lawyers given all the rules weighing on them, and who are above all our heritage, our identity.
They are the ones who shape our landscapes. They are the ones who shape our society. So, ladies and gentlemen, I really ask you for a thunderous round of applause for our agricultural sector, and that our MPs and ministers stand by their side every day. As I said, Europe has an enormous task ahead, but Europe is us. Europe is not other people. We must already begin these tasks at the level of our own country. That's what we did with limiting unemployment benefits to two years. This measure is not a budgetary measure. It's a cultural revolution.
It means sending the signal that work is at the heart of society. It means sending the signal that solidarity is not a cash machine. It means sending the signal that the state must stand by you as soon as you face a hardship in life. But that everyone able to contribute must be able to do so through their work, through their commitment. This reform will change things for years to come. It's better to do it all at once. Otherwise it drags on. This reform will change things for years to come, because it sends a signal to younger generations.
It shows them that there is no prosperous society without work. It shows them that if we want to fund solidarity, everyone must do their part. And above all, and I say this to you tonight, the true party of solidarity is not the one that spends every last cent in the coffers. It's the one that worries about whether there will be money left in years to come. It's the one that ensures we can live well, but that our children can also enjoy our standard of living. Today you may applaud, it's true that's not a bad idea.
Today, you need to know that the way we live is as if you went to a restaurant, perhaps you went to that wonderful pop-up restaurant that was right here above, and at the end of the meal, having drunk champagne of course, because why not, you phone your son or daughter and say “you'll need to come and settle the bill”. That is exactly how we are living. Every baby born in Belgium today has a debt of 50,000 to 60,000 euros. That is certainly clearer, because given the flurry of billions you hear about on television, I think the more zeros there are, the less we manage to grasp what it actually represents. But make no mistake.
Today's debt is tomorrow's tax. The State is not someone else. It is you. It is each and every one of you. And so you must divide the national debt by 11 million, perhaps even by 6, which is the number of people in work. And that figure you add to your own personal debt. Because that is the money that will one day have to be repaid. That is why, if we want to get out of this situation, we must boost growth. Growth has become a suspect word, a taboo word, because growth, supposedly, would destroy the planet and destroy human beings. But that overlooks the fact that growth is precisely what gives us the standard of living we enjoy today. Our country has many problems, but you won't find many countries in the world with such a high life expectancy, such a strong level of education, or such a high level of shared prosperity.
So yes, Belgium must be reformed, but Belgium remains one of the best places to live on the planet. That is why I think we must realise these are not privileges guaranteed for eternity, but something that must be worked at if we want to preserve it, if we are truly responsible towards future generations. We must also cut State spending and fight privileges. I'll come back to State spending, but on privileges, I want to give you an explanation about something you may have seen concerning the health insurance funds.
We were told that the MR wanted to tax the health insurance funds. We simply want the health funds to pay the same taxes as everyone else. Today we're told we must tax the broadest shoulders. So what do they do? They go after workers, investors, savers. And we're told those are the broadest shoulders. So I wanted to check that a little. And I discovered that the health funds had assets worth 6.4 billion euros. 6.4 billion euros. Marcou is almost an amateur by comparison. I'm waiting for the day the Ardennes wild boar gets bought out by Solidaris. Because believe it or not, those 6.4 billion euros are held in luxury hotels, shares, bonds, ski resorts. You may have once skied in a resort belonging to the socialist health fund. Is that normal? But I thought to myself, that must be a mistake.
So I dug a bit further. And that's when I realised something: the health funds sell private insurance products, just like private insurance companies. And they pay no taxes. It's astonishing, really. But I thought to myself, that can't be. Health funds are rather left-wing after all. Solidarity, Christian mutuality. And people on the left are all about solidarity. People on the left ask everyone to pay more tax. They'll start with themselves. You know what they say, charity begins at home. Well, it turns out, not quite. Jean-Pascal Labille, who spends his time explaining that companies must pay more tax, that bosses earn too much while he apparently likes them even less, this gentleman managed, together with his comrades, to get exempted from a series of taxes that everyone else pays.
Because you were led to believe that taxing the health funds would be passed on to you. Odd, because the left doesn't reason that way at all when it comes to taxing banks. They say, let's tax the banks. Fine. But they don't ask themselves whether your bank fees might go up as a result. But here, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a wealth tax paid by every non-profit organisation in the country. The poor sisters, for example, who look after the elderly. Cap 48. Cap 48 pays the wealth tax. They're not doing social work, apparently. At the event, they don't pay. But above all, when you sell supplementary insurance like DKV, are you doing social work? I don't think so. Otherwise every insurance company in the country becomes a social economy enterprise.
I do look forward to seeing the face of AXA's boss when I explain to him that he's running a social economy business. That should change his tune a bit. So let's be serious, ladies and gentlemen. The aim is not to punish anyone. It's simply to guarantee equality before the tax system. And why? So that with the money we recover, that is 165 million euros every year, we can invest it in lowering taxes for people starting a job. Because when someone moves from inactivity into employment, they have much higher costs in the first year.
We also need to create an incentive so that these people truly see the benefit of taking up a job. And yes, we don't want a new tax, on the contrary we want zero tax, I've been very clear on that. But we simply want to respect the principle of equality. Now comes the moment some, especially in the front row, have been eagerly waiting for, because this is about cutting State spending. At first it sounds good. You'll see afterwards it gets more complicated. Of course the State costs too much. 55% of our GDP is public spending. In the Netherlands, it's 45%. Do you feel the roads in the Netherlands are in worse condition? Do you think justice is served more slowly there? Slower: that's almost impossible. Are there fewer police officers? Are social benefits lower?
Perhaps in terms of inactivity, but not in terms of pensions, for example. The Netherlands has the highest pension level in the European Union. What's the difference? The difference is that in the Netherlands there is a single government. There are provinces reduced to the strict minimum and larger municipalities. So yes, we will have to move forward with Adrien Dolimont and the Walloon Government on abolishing the political level of the provinces. And I want to reassure provincial staff. Their jobs are not going to disappear. A teacher giving lessons in provincial education will keep teaching. The only difference is there will no longer be a provincial deputy above them. There will be another public authority. But yes, we must move forward on this. We must also abolish the Senate. We must also merge municipalities and CPAS.
And yes, we will need to open up the question of merging municipalities. That is why, starting Monday, I will launch an initiative within the Mouvement Réformateur, first involving our mayors and then, province by province, all our local elected representatives, so that we can work together to determine criteria for strengthening public efficiency, reducing the cost of the State apparatus, while preserving the proximity of services for citizens. But if we want to be sincere in our approach to lowering taxes, we must also be sincere in our approach to cutting spending.
It would be a lie to make people believe we can lower taxes while keeping such a level of public spending. That's fairly easy to understand. If tomorrow you were to say you might, I don't know, reduce the cut you take from your children's New Year's money. I hope you don't do that, because that would be very wrong. But on the other hand, if you keep going on holiday three times a year, you'll need to find the money somewhere. Here, the point is not to reduce people's wellbeing, it's to scale things back, to cut all the costs inherent to the public structure that make our country inefficient. Because yes, and I'm not afraid to say this in a room full of politicians, there are too many politicians in our country. There are far too many of us. Within the Mouvement Réformateur alone, we have 2,500 elected representatives.
Do we even realise that? For a single party? Imagine that there are 6 major parties in total, plus a few smaller structures that still exist. And that's only half the country. Come on, is that really serious? So let me tell you, I think the most important thing when doing politics is not to accumulate mandates, but to leave a mark. And as Willy said in his opening speech, that must be the goal of this legislature.
The goal of this legislature is to carry out the reforms Belgium has been waiting for for decades. It's about being the drivers of the change people voted for. We must also address this in one final area I'd like to raise with you: security. Because during the end-of-year celebrations, you again saw scenes in Brussels where some used Kalashnikovs to celebrate a football match, destroying public property even though they had won the match. I think if they had lost, they would have destroyed things too. It's the destruction of joy or the destruction of disappointment. I've never quite understood the difference between the two. In any case, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to put the “polluter pays”, or rather, “vandal pays”, principle on the table.
It can't be that when someone destroys public property, it is the working men and women who must fund it through their taxes. Now you'll tell me, some are insolvent. That's fine, community service is always an option. But there's no longer any question of escaping one's responsibility. Our country must be a land of rights and freedoms. But it must also be a land with obligations. Because a society cannot function unless everyone takes on their share of responsibility. In that regard, we must also send back people in an irregular situation, and in particular, as a priority, those held in our prisons. 43% of inmates in Belgium do not hold Belgian nationality. You've certainly seen the new fashion of trying to portray us as far-right because we say this.
But isn't it rather the others who are irresponsible for tolerating such a situation? A situation that costs our fellow citizens 240 million euros every year? And which, above all, sends a disastrous signal that Belgium is indeed a country governed by law, but a country that need not be respected. So let me tell you, our country is a land of welcome and must remain so. We must support those who came here to work, to build our country together with us.
But we must be firm and show no leniency towards those who came here to commit crimes. Let me tell you: impunity is over! We will also strengthen the conditions for access to Belgian nationality. Because today it's possible to fail the integration process and still become Belgian. That makes no sense. It makes no sense because being Belgian is not a right, it's a privilege. It's a privilege for each and every one of us. It's a privilege to be able to live in one of the most progressive countries on the planet, in a country with such a level of wellbeing. And let me tell you, all those attacking us today over our values, make no mistake. It's because they're incapable of debating the substance with us. It's because they no longer have any arguments.
So when you no longer have an argument, you attack the other person on who they are, on their values. It's so easy. When someone often manages to silence you, the simplest thing is to tell yourself that, at best, they're a fool, or at worst, a bad person. It's so much harder to reflect on the arguments you've received and try to find others, to deconstruct them. What I'm telling you is so true that the president of the Parti Socialiste himself said over the festive season, certainly between two batches of bread-making, since you know he's a baker in his spare time, he should perhaps do it full-time. I've never tasted his bread, but I know the quality of his politics. His bread can only be better. He explained to us that he wasn't going to backtrack on unlimited unemployment benefits. So why is he protesting?
But they won't go back on our reforms. Those reforms they call brutal, populist, extremist. They won't reverse them. So why are they shouting? They're shouting because the soup was good. And they want to get back into power. Not to change people's lives. Not to improve the country's situation. Just to be part of it again. So, ladies and gentlemen, and this will be my final word: above all, don't doubt it, this will continue. It will continue. It will be permanent and systematic. It will be much more directed at the MR. Why? That's the best proof that we are the force of change.
Of course we're not the only ones in government. But sometimes, when I look at social media or hear certain protesters, I feel like I'm simultaneously minister of immigration, of the interior, president of the European Commission, even a Flemish minister, why not? Because everything would be our fault. I'm sure that if we look hard enough, we must be responsible for one natural disaster or another. The year must be our fault too. It surprises me, actually, that no one has yet claimed that in the years when we weren't in government at 30%, it snowed less. See? We got the date wrong, I would have preferred 24 December. But more seriously, this will of course continue. So we'll need to be solid, we'll need to be strong. Above all, we'll need to be courageous. Because in life, courage is the only possible engine for change. Only courage makes it possible to achieve great things. I know that sometimes we'd like a bit more calm and comfort.
I can tell you I'm well placed to say this. But again, do we want to leave a legacy? Do we want our children to thank us? Do we want that? Do we want a good write-up? The impossible article, the favourable one, from the RTBF? Or do we want people, in 10-15 years, to explain that thanks to this reform, Belgium was able to turn its situation around, while still maintaining the reward for the work of those who today are acting in the interest of our country?
So yes, we'll need to be very courageous. Above all, above all, we must never forget that the noise around us is just noise. And that while that noise is being heard, dozens and dozens of reforms are being passed. And our greatest satisfaction in 2029 will be to be able to say that we took our responsibilities, that we turned the country around.
And don't be afraid of the elections. Voters will know how to recognise consistent people, courageous people, responsible people. So, in 2026, be courageous, you've understood that, and be happy, because that's what we get up for every morning after all. And I hope you'll be happier tonight than when you woke up. And above all, above all, more than ever, be proud to be liberals! Here's to an excellent 2026!
Thank you all.