Last December, Belgium’s prime minister went up against European Commission President and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the monthly meeting of the European Council, the executive body consisting of the heads of government of all EU Member States, and flatly rejected the Commission’s plan to confiscate Russian state assets held in Euroclear (Belgium) for the purpose of collateralizing a 95 billion euro loan to Kiev to continue the war for a couple more years.
The fur flew in all directions, other EU leaders were aghast, but De Wever did what our celebrated heroes of common sense, Viktor Orban of Hungary and Robert Fico of Slovakia had never dared to do: veto an anti-Russian measure that was put to a vote of the Members. De Wever attracted the support of Malta and a couple of other minor EU states, but then was joined by Giorgia Meloni of Italy, which put paid to von der Leyen’s insane plans. In the end, von der Leyen and Merz were compelled to proceed with their Plan B, which was for the EU to assign reserves in its own budget for purposes of collateral, a solution which would make it clear from the very outset that financing Ukraine would come at a direct and immediate cost to the taxpayers of Europe, where that notion is highly unpopular.
I took my hat off to De Wever in December. Now I do so again based on a news item on page one of today’s Financial Times: “Belgian Prime Minister calls for EU to normalise relations with Russia.” This article draws upon an interview which De Wever gave to the French-speaking financial newspaper Echo de la Bourse in which he calls upon his European colleagues to acknowledge that Europe cannot defeat Russia economically or militarily without massive support from the USA which is not forthcoming. Accordingly, it should reconcile itself with the necessity to strike a deal with Russia and resume its access to Russian hydrocarbons.
In its second-paragraph, the FT identifies De Wever as “a rightwing Flemish nationalist” which might smack of the populism and extremism that its readership may be presumed to detest. In fact, De Wever is a follower of Thatcherite economics and a ‘pocketbook’ as opposed to Romantic nationalist. His first concern has always been the prosperity of Belgian citizens which can be best served by pragmatism as opposed to the ideological posturing so beloved by the European Commission and a large majority of the leaders in other EU Member States.
Unlike Fico and Orban, De Wever has been careful to maintain the fiction of solidarity with Ukraine in its just cause against Russia. I sincerely doubt that his public statements in this vein reflect his inner convictions on who is right and who is wrong in the Russia-Ukraine war, but then again the public statements of many EU leaders in favor of Ukraine do not reflect their inner thoughts, as De Wever says openly in this interview.
The FT article takes the trouble to inform us that De Wever’s coalition partner, his foreign minister, Maxime Prévost, of the center-left francophone party Les Engagés, has criticized the Prime Minister for his advocacy of normalized relations with Russia. Per Prévost, Europe must first be invited to the negotiating table and a peace treaty prepared before it can relent on the anti-Russian sanctions. Of course, that is combining the irreconcilable, because the EU’s presence at the negotiating table would only serve to sabotage those talks. I point out that not only Prévost but all the francophone parties of Belgium are deeply anti-Russian. These parties have traditionally looked to Paris for a cue on all political issues, and we all know where Emmanuel Macron obstinately stands on peace with Russia and normalization of relations.
As a 46 year long resident of Belgium who always looked up to the French speaking elites in Brussels, who never took the time to speak Flemish properly, and who looked skeptically at the seemingly provincial Flemish politicians in the North, I admit that I was deeply mistaken as to where genuine sagesse is lodged.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026
Gilbert Doctorow 