Hugo Schiltz
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Hugo Schiltz (Borsbeek, 27 October 1927 - Antwerp, 5 August 2006) was a Belgian lawyer and politician. He was Belgian MP from 1965 to 1988 and senator from 1992 to 1995. He was also twice minister, from 1981 to 1985 in the first Flemish Government and between 1988 and 1991 in the Belgian federal government Martens VIII. He was further president of the Flemish political party Volksunie between 1975 and 1979.
He was one of the founders of federalism in Belgium. After the dissolution of the Volksunie, he chose the new party Spirit.
[edit] Career
During World War II Schiltz was a member of the Nationaal-Socialistische Jeugd Vlaanderen (English: National Socialist Youth Flanders). This brought him in jail for some months after the war.
He studied Law, Economic Science and Thomistic Philosophy at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, where he became a member of the Katholiek Vlaams Hoogstudentenverbond (KVHV). In 1953 he became a lawyer and an economy teacher.
In 1958, he was elected member of the Antwerp municipal council, which he would remain until 1998.
After a short period with the (then belgicist) CVP party, he became a member of the Volksunie in 1963. From 1975 to 1979 he was party president. During that time, he steered the party into a more left-liberal direction. He participated in drawing up the Egmont pact, that in certain Flemish circles was seen as treason. The Belgian government didn't survive the disapproval of the pact in parliament.
The new, more liberal direction of the Volksunie, and the cooperation in the Egmont pact were the reason for the creation by the more radical, right wing-conservative part of the Volksunie, of two new small parties, the Vlaams Nationale Partij (Flemish National Party, VNP), presided by Karel Dillen, and the Vlaamse Volkspartij (Flemish Popular Party, VVP) with the former VU senator Lode Claes. Later, both parties merged into the Vlaams Blok.
Together with Wilfried Martens and Jean-Luc Dehaene, Hugo Schiltz was at the basis of the reform of Belgium into a federal state.
From 1994 to 1998, Schiltz was alderman for finances in Antwerp in an anti-Vlaams Blok coalition.
In 1995 he received the honorary title of Minister of State from the Belgian king.
After the dissolution of the Volksunie into N-VA and Spirit in 2001, Schiltz became a member of the latter. In that year, he resumed practising law, first with Ernst & Young and Peeters Advocaten, later he founded Laurius-Schiltz-Verschoeven ADVC.
[edit] Death
Hugo Schiltz died Saturday 5 August 2006 in Antwerp of leukemia.
[edit] References
Much of the content of this article comes from the equivalent Dutch-language wikipedia article (retrieved 6 August 2006).
