Armand De Decker
Armand De Decker ( born October 8, 1948 in Brussels) is a Belgian politician of the Mouvement Réformateur ( MR). De Decker is an experienced parliamentarian and currently sits as a senator. From 1999 to 2004 and from 2007 to 2010 he was president of the Senate. He held also from 2004 to 2007, the Office of the Minister for Development Cooperation. At local level, De Decker 's mayor in the Brussels municipality of Uccle / Ukkel. Since 2009, he bears the honorary title of Minister of State.
Life
Armand De Decker was the son of Luc De Decker, a Flemish painter, was born. His mother was a teacher. De Decker studied law at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB ) and was approved in 1973 as an attorney.
De Decker has a brother ( Jacques), for its part, writers and permanent secretary of the Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique, which is not to be confused with the Royal Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts. The wife of Armand De Decker, Jacqueline Rousseaux, is also a lawyer and a Member of the Brussels Parliament.
Political career
Already in the founding of the Parti Réformateur Libéral (PRL ), predecessor of today's Mouvement Réformateur ( MR), in 1979, Armand De Decker was able to secure a place in the boardroom of the party. His true political work began in 1980, when he (PRL ) has been set as an adviser in the office of Minister of Defence Charles Poswick. The following year, De Decker was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, where he remained until 1995. There, he specialized in matters of international and defense policy of Belgium. He also was a member of the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe and the Western European Union ( WEU).
Towards the end of the 1990s, Armand De Decker took first a variety of offices. He was 1995-1999 President of the Parliament of the Brussels -Capital Region and from 1999 to 2004, President of the Senate ( where he served since 1995 as a Community Senator ). In 2004, when the then Foreign Minister Louis Michel ( MR) joined the European Commission, De Decker was given the post of Minister for Development Cooperation in the Government Verhofstadt II under Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt (VLD ). After the federal election of 2007 he left the government and was re-elected as President of the Senate. Due to the electoral defeat of the MR in the federal elections in 2010, however, he gave 20 July 2010 again from this office and was replaced by Danny Pieters ( N -VA) at the top of the Senate. Since then, De Decker meets again as a simple senator.
At the local level Armand De Decker could win the mayoralty of the Brussels commune of Uccle / Ukkel in 2006.
Honors
Since November 24, 2009 Armand De Decker carries the honorary title of Minister of State. He is since 1999 Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold and since 2003 Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold II De Decker also received numerous foreign honorary title and is, for example, Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, Grand Cross of the Italian Order of Merit and the Grand Cross of the Dutch Order of Orange -Nassau.