Speaker of federal parliament withdraws from Telenet board

The speaker of the federal parliament, Siegfried Bracke (N-VA), has stepped down as a paid adviser to telecommunications company Telenet. The move follows news that broke last week regarding Flemish politicians’ lucrative positions as board members of intercommunals and other concerns.

Bracke (pictured) is the fraction leader of N-VA on Ghent’s city council and last week called for an investigation into socialist city councillors who were paid generous stipends as board members of the intercommunal Publipart.

Bracke, it was later revealed, was paid some €12,000 a year to act as an adviser to Telenet, despite the company’s main competitor, Proximus, being part-owned by the government and despite legislation passing through parliament for the reform of the company. The stipend made Bracke the highest-paid politician in the country, with an annual declared income of €305,130.

Bracke is also a member of Ghent University’s steering committee, which meets 15 times a year and pays its members €200 for each meeting they attend. For the year 2014, Bracke declared that income to the federal Court of Auditors. In 2015, however, he did not.

Photo: Romaine/Wikimedia