MPs have rejected a proposal to end the free beer and wine available to them in the national parliament despite an ethics committee concluding that heavy drinking was leading to “unpleasantness”.
The Chamber of Representatives started serving free alcohol in the late 1990s to stop MPs slipping out to bars in the course of all-night debates during the country’s periodic political crises. However, after an incident last September in which one of them was accused of making a racist comment during a parliamentary debate, the chamber’s Speaker asked the assembly’s ethics committee to investigate. It did — and determined that the removal of free alcohol for the nation’s MPs would contribute to a higher quality of debate.
Danny Pieters, a former Senate president who led the committee’s investigation, said that the free alcohol served in the members’ bar was leading to heavy drinking during long parliamentary sessions. “Some members can be very unpleasant if they have been drinking. We propose to call time on the serving of free alcohol in the parliament.”
The number of drinks served, and the cost of the parliamentary perk to Belgian taxpayers, has not been disclosed.
The MPs, representing a country div-ided by political rifts between its Dutch-speaking Flemish north and the francophone Walloon south, have united across community and party lines to defend their alcohol entitlement. Hermann De Croo, the Flemish liberal leader who introduced the free drinks policy almost two decades ago, dismissed the ban as “ridiculous”. He said: “Everyone can see perfectly well how much you drink. I can assure you that more hot chocolates are served over the bar than beers.
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“Mature people sit in parliament who can monitor their own alcohol consumption,” he added. “A politician cannot afford to get drunk in front of the microphone.”
Mr De Croo said that serving free beer and wine had actually reduced alcohol consumption from the days when MPs would leave the chamber and flock to local bars during parliamentary sessions.
“During long debates we often saw MPs disappear to one of the many bars around the parliament, only to return narrowly in time for votes. To combat such practices we decided to serve alcohol in the parliament.”
Siegfried Bracke, the Speaker, agreed. “There is no alcohol problem,” he said.