Pieter De Crem

Pieter De Crem
Minister of Defence
Incumbent
Assumed office 21 December 2007
Prime Minister	Guy Verhofstadt Yves Leterme Herman Van Rompuy Yves Leterme Elio Di Rupo
Preceded by	André Flahaut
Personal details
Born	22 July 1962 (1962-07-22) Aalter, Belgium
Political party	Christian Democratic and Flemish
Spouse(s)	Caroline Bergez
Alma mater	Catholic University of Leuven Free University of Brussels, Dutch
Website	Personal site Ministry of Defense

Pieter Frans Norbert Jozef Raymond De Crem (born 22 July 1962 in Aalter) is a Belgian, Flemish politician and member of Christian Democratic and Flemish (CD&V). He is the current Minister of Defense in the Belgian federal government. He has been a Member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives since 1995. He headed the CD&V fraction in the Chamber of Representatives from 2003 to 2007. Since 1995, he has been the Mayor of Aalter, in East Flanders.

De Crem became the Belgian minister of defence on 21 December 2007.

Education

Master of Romanic Philology at KUL – Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Catholic University of Leuven) Master of European and international Law at VUB – Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels)

Language proficiency

Pieter De Crem is Dutch native speaker. He speaks and writes fluently in French, English, German, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. He also has a basic ability of Russian.

Municipal politics

• When Jan De Crem – father of Pieter De Crem – decided to retire after more than 30 years in office as a mayor of the township of Aalter, Pieter was considered as his favorite successor. In 1994, he participated for the first time in the municipal elections. He was straightaway elected mayor. His mandate was renewed in the elections in 2000 and in 2006.

• During the elections of 2006, all opposition parties in Aalter bundled their efforts while attempting to break the Christian Democrate majority. The opposition was led by former federal Minister Jef Tavernier. Nevertheless the election resulted in a major success for the incumbent majority as two out of three citizens voted in favor of De Crem’s party.

Early career in politics

• De Crem started his political career at the national level in 1989 when he became president of the youth division of the Christian Peoples Party (CVP – Christene Volkspartij) for the Region Ghent-Eeclo. He maintained this function until he was elected mayor of his township of Aalter for the first time.

• In the middle of the eighties, Prime Minister Wilfried Martens and by Minister of Defense Leo Delcroix noticed the political ability of De Crem. After a short time De Crem was appointed as a collaborator in the private offices of both ministers, focusing on the political opportunities in the ‘Rue de la Loi’, the Belgian political center. He was elected as a member of the Parliament for the first time on 21 May 1995, into the Chamber of Deputies. Despite the electoral defeat of his party CVP in the 1999 elections, De Crem managed to be reelected.

• As a party member of the CD&V ( the CVP changed its name into CD&V in 2001) he was reelected for the second time on 18 mai 2003. He was appointed to leader of the CD&V group in the Chamber of Deputies.

• On the international level, De Crem was one of the Belgian representatives within the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

• Within the party CD&V Pieter De Crem belongs to the liberal right wing.. During the opposition period, De Crem ‘s positions were regularly supported by het Vlaamse Belang and by the CdH (the French speaking sister party of CD&V).

Minister of Defence

• On 21 December 2007, when the ‘interim government Verhofstadt III’ was established, De Crem was appointed Minister of Defense. He promptly revised a controversial arms contract, signed by his predecessor André Flahaut, who ordered several non-NATO standard 90mm turrets for Belgian Army armored vehicles. On 23 January 2008, he came into the news by suggesting that nuclear capability was present at the Kleine Brogel airbase, confirming in this way Belgium’s responsibilities in NATO’s nuclear policy.

• De Crem increases the participation of the Belgian armed forces in international operations. Early 2009, well over 1.200 Belgian troops participate in peace support missions around the world. This is an increase by half compared with the average during the five preceding years. Belgium sent first four and later even six F-16 combat aircraft to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. According to De Crem, hereby supported by several international reports, an emphasis must be granted on training the Afghan Army and Police. As a result, he sent two Operational Mentoring and Liaison Teams to Kunduz in the north to train the Afghan National Army. Meanwhile, the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon was extended for one year.

• He also launched several new initiatives. From September 2009 a Belgian navy frigate, flying the European flag, patrols in the Gulf of Aden to fight piracy.

• In May 2009 when a Belgian ship, the 'Pompey', was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, he offers immediate military assistance to all Belgian merchant vessels sailing through the strait of Aden. At the same time De Crem and his colleague Minister of Justice Stefaan De Clerck update an old law against piracy in order to enable prosecution. The Vessel Protection Disposal concept was born.

• As part of the budget cuts by the Belgian Government, Minister De Crem accelerates the reduction in staff from 42,000 to 37,725 employees. He realizes so, six years earlier than planned, the objectives of a previous army reform. At the same time he lowers the number of generals by 20 percent.

• On 21 October 2009, De Crem got approval of the government for his own transformation plan. Initially, it received severe opposition from the unions. The plan completes all former but still unfinished reforms. De Crem is committed to finalize this reform in the current legislative period. By 2012 the number of employees shall be reduced to 34,000 and 23 military barracks will close. Equipment and personnel are grouped together to form new and full deployable units. The contingent needs to be reduced to bring expenditure back into balance.

• After years of searching in the jungle of Central Africa, Minister De Crem approved new defense efforts in order to locate the remains of a helicopter crash. The plane, a Piasecki H-21 Shawnee, was flown by a Belgian military three-man crew. It disappeared in 1965 in bad weather conditions. End of 2010, at year long insistence of the families, and because De Crem considers it important that the fate of every missing soldier is known, the Minister approved and sponsored an expedition into the jungle. Belgian paratroopers found the wreck after a four-day march through inaccessible terrain. They do not find any human remains, however, through the found serial numbers that demonstrated that they’ve found the missing helicopter.

• De Crem uses the opportunity of the Belgian EU-Presidency in the second half of 2010, to set the first steps towards more cooperation in the field of a common European Defense. On 9 December 2010 at the Council for Foreign Affairs in Brussels, all 27 Defense Ministers of the EU Member States supported the "Ghent Framework Initiative". European member states commit themselves to more cooperation in the defense field through pooling and sharing. The Framework Initiative took shape at the end of September in Ghent during the informal meeting was convened by Minister De Crem.

• De Crem's name also pops up several times in the Wikileaks 'Cables'. They were sent by the U.S. Ambassador in Brussels to Washington saying that De Crem is striving to become again a reliable ally within NATO. Another message in which De Crem shows up, states that Belgium is a small country that will and can play an important role in Europe.

• In the middle of March 2011, all political parties in parliament requested a decisive attitude of the Belgian Government in response to Colonel Kaddafi, who was using tanks against the Libyan population in order to stop the "Arab Spring". As proposed by De Crem, Belgium offered six F-16 fighter aircraft, a mine hunter and one hundred and fifty soldiers to the international coalition. Belgium was one of the first countries to join the NATO operation for the protection of the population of Libya.

Trivial

• De Crem has faced criticism for visiting a New York bar with taxpayers' money, claiming it was for a United Nations meeting. However, his own aides admitted they knew the meeting was cancelled.

• Also, while head of defence of the Belgian state, De Crem never served in the army, he was excused of conscription by medical reasons.

• He is currently mayor of Aalter, like his father before him. This results in the Aalter town hall being called 'the Cremlin' by the press. As minister of defence his eagerness to have the Belgian military join in NATO missions has earned him the nickname "Crembo", a portmanteau of his last name and Rambo.

• University professors Christ'l The Landtsheer (Communication Sciences - University of Antwerp) and Pascal De Sutter (Psychology - University of Louvain-la-Neuve) typify Pieter De Crem in their book "The Clash of the Titans", a scientific study on psycho-political profiling, as follows :

Above all, the Minister of Defence Pieter De Crem shows himself as a Dominant and Ambitious personality, who is not afraid to ask critical questions, to take risks and to do what is necessary. He is charming, confident, eloquent and convincing. De Crem is someone you want to stand on your side. Too bad for those who do not agree with his vision.

• De Crem is also known for his staunch support for the maintenance of Nuclear Weapons on Belgian soil. As revealed, he also pressed Prime Minister Leterme to maintain the 'secret' weapons in Belgium.

External links

• Website of Pieter De Crem

Political offices
Preceded by André Flahaut	Minister of Defence 2007–present	Incumbent