“Flanders simply has a problem with Brussels”: Rachid Madrane (PS), who earns 17,000 euros more than the prime minister, defends himself | Interior

243,270 euros, that’s how much the president of the Brussels Parliament earns on an annual basis. That is almost 17,000 euros more than his fellow party member Eliane Tillieux, who earns one symbolic euro more than Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Open Vld). In recent years, both wages have been cut considerably, but in the Brussels Parliament there was no agreement to save and due to the automatic indexation, their parliamentary allowances increased further.

The figure released by HLN was confirmed by the ‘transparency cell’ in the Brussels Parliament, but Madrane still questions that amount. “I have not chosen my position, nor my salary, that is laid down by law,” said the socialist at the news channel LN24.

Madrane defends himself by claiming that Flemish Prime Minister Jan Jambon (N-VA) earns more than him. “I am not the best-paid politician in Belgium,” he insists, but the PS member waved figures from 2021 in the French-speaking press. This newspaper recently published the salary of the president of parliament based on figures from 2022. the tax returns for 2022 will be submitted in June, but HLN was already able to view some figures.

The socialist accuses this newspaper of ‘Brussel-bashing’. “Flanders regularly says that Brussels is poorly governed, that we don’t know how to govern, that we have too many representatives, but Flanders forgets that the political model in Brussels has just become more complicated because it asked for special allowances for the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Brussels.” According to Madrane, Flanders “just has a problem with the capital”. “I can no longer stand the fact that some Flemings come and lecture Brussels. In reality, their problem is that they don’t like their capital.”