Yves Leterme

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**Yves Leterme**

Born	6 October 1960 Wervik
Title	Minister-President of Flanders
Term	20 July 2004—present
Predecessor	Bart Somers
Political party	CD&V
Religion	Roman Catholic

Yves Leterme (October 6, 1960 in Wervik, Belgium) is the current Minister-President of Flanders, Belgium. At the same time, he also serves as Flemish Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.

Before entering national politics, Leterme served as an auditor at the Rekenhof. He then became adjunct and then national secretary of the CVP until he resigned to become a civil servant with the European Union. In 1997 he went on indefinite leave in that function when he was appointed Member of the Belgian Parliament. He is a member of the city council of Ieper since 1995. He served as alderman of Ieper from 1995 to 2001.

He was appointed to the Belgian House of Representatives in 1997, elected in 1999 and 2003. After the defeat of the CD&V in the general elections of 2003, he succeeded Stefaan De Clercq as party chairman. He served as chairman until he resigned after the regional elections of 2004 to become Flemish Prime Minister. In 2004 his party won the elections, thanks to success of the newly-formed election cartel with the smaller separatist party N-VA. Since 2004 he has headed the Flemish government, which consists of the three traditional Flemish parties (CD&V-N-VA, VLD, SP.A-Spirit). Leterme has faced some internal troubles and conflict in this grand coalition.

Yves Leterme is known for his formal, business-like style, which is in direct contrast to the style of the Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. ^{[citation needed]} This has made Leterme very popular with the voters. He is a centre-rightist conservative.

1 Polemic against Francophones
2 Position on Royalty
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Polemic against Francophones

During an interview to the French newspaper Libération in August 2006, he declared about the French-speaking inhabitants of the municipalities with linguistic facilities around Brussels: "But apparently, the francophones are not in an intellectual state for learning Dutch, therefore the prolongation of this exceptional status".^[1] According to him, the only common things to Belgians are "The King, the football team, some beers...". ^[1]

The president of the Belgian socialist party Elio Di Rupo estimated that these comments were insulting for the French-speakers of the Brussels fringe and might probably be due to either a translation mistake or a bad usage of the French language. ^[2] On her side, Isabelle Durant, the federal secretary of the green political party Ecolo estimates that Yves Leterme "does not distinguish himself from the Vlaams Belang^[2]".

Several Flemish politicians were revolted by these declarations, like Pascal Smet (minister of the Flemish socialist party sp.a), Guy Vanhengel (minister of the Flemish liberal party VLD) and also Georges De Smul and Lieve Lippens (from the social christian CD&V, the same party as Yves Leterme) ^[3].

[edit] Position on Royalty

Yves Leterme considers that Belgium should not be a kingdom anymore. A reportage produced by the Belgian francophone television company RTBF for the Questions broadcasting reports that Leterme would have said in the Flemish parliament: "I don't need the King" ^[4]. According to Flemish newspapers, this sentence was used out of context, because Leterme was talking about the creation of Flemish laws: he does not need the king to sign the voted laws, as is the case for Belgian federal laws. The Flemish Minister-President signs law himself ^[5]