Debate about penny index interrupted by heated discussion between De Roover and Van Quickenborne: “You are not worthy to be chairman”
In the House, the opposition has largely left the hemisphere after a heated discussion about the application of the House rules. According to the opposition, there were not enough MPs present to start the debate. The majority and Speaker of the House Peter De Roover disputed that.
The plenary meeting of the House will consider this afternoon penny index and the pension reform. But before that debate could start, there was already discussion about an advice from the Council of State regarding opposition amendments to the latter bill. That advice is there, but not yet in both national languagesand so the debate cannot start, according to the opposition.
The majority rejected that reasoning in a vote. Only pale in that mood only 73 members of the majority present in the House, less than half and therefore not a legally valid quorum, the opposition argued. Those factions had left their seats, but the MPs were still largely in the room itself at the time of the vote. According to Chamber Chairman Peter De Roover, there was a majority present in the hemisphere, and the debate could simply begin.
The Speaker of the House accused the opposition of “playing with the house and with the normal functioning of the parliamentary debate”. Other MP Vincent Van Quickenborne shouted at De Roover that he had done it “not worth being president” and that he must “respect the regulations”. De Roover left in the previous legislature as N-VA faction leader regularly suspend a meeting if insufficient majority MPs were present.
After a long debate in the Conference of Presidents, the House adopted the work resumed around 1:30 p.m. The discussion about the penny index will be concluded today. It is not yet certain whether the debate on pension reform can start afterwards.
