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Welcome

My name is Filip Walleyn. I am from Bruges and have been a member of Open VLD for many years.
As a candidate for president, I want to change the party’s course with a new name and a new story: Libra, “Liberal Right Alternative.” Who I am comes second; what truly matters is what I stand for (see also our program summarized in 10 points).

Our current president, Eva De Bleeker, is in any case joyfully expecting a new party. She envisions the party being reborn within 9 months, after its conception at our magnificent Festival of Ideas.

What you may not know is that my hobby is deep-sea diving. My official personal record is 92 meters deep, achieved during a trip to Jordan. To find a solution for Brussels, I also had to dive very deep.
So deep that – figuratively speaking – I may well have touched the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

I went back in time, to the days when people in our regions still paid with Flemish Pennings and Groten. Bruges was then the commercial hub of Northern Europe. It lay at the crossroads of the Mediterranean world and the Hanseatic League, which had its origins around the Baltic Sea. For the Mediterranean world, Bruges was the northernmost port; for the Hanseatic League, it was the southernmost Kontorei.

And when I ascended back to the surface, I realized that a solution for Brussels was possible: Brussels is not a part of Wallonia! The harder one tries to defend this idea, the deeper the swamp will become for Brussels and Wallonia. The only public link is the flow of transfers from north to south. The only real private link between Brussels and Wallonia is a Flemish investor who is the majority shareholder of a Brussels football club, who conquered Durbuy with his charm, brought fine dining in his wake, and is also co-owner of Pairi Daiza (a name derived from Old Persian, meaning “paradise”).

My proposal is simple: make Brussels the capital of Flanders and merge the 19 municipalities into one city with one administration, one police zone, and one budget.

Break the Brussels–Wallonia axis and give Brussels an international status in which every citizen must master at least one of the three official regional languages: Dutch, English, or French. Rename the region/city/capital – however you want to call it – but make it “Brussels.” Our website is, in any case, already future-proof.