Journalists who survived until the bitter end of Thursday’s European Council were treated to a inadvertent standup comedy set by Belgium’s new Prime Minister Bart De Wever.
That’s a change of pace for Brussels, where leaders’ summits are usually a somber — often tense — affair, even when Russian military threats and tariff wars aren’t on the agenda.
De Wever is the first Flemish nationalist to take the reins of Belgium, and his government has pledged big spending cuts and the strictest migration policy ever. In large swaths of Belgium’s French-speaking Wallonia region, where his past derisory statements about Walloons are still etched in the collective memory, De Wever is regarded with distrust. In Dutch-speaking Flanders, however, he’s also known for his sardonic wit.
On Thursday, De Wever told reporters that he’d used that to his advantage in talks with other EU leaders. “With some humor — dark humor admittedly — I told them what was on my mind,” he said.
He gave his post-summit press conference the same treatment, filling his late-night debrief with puns and one-liners. Here’s POLITICO’s shortlist of De Wever’s snappiest quotes:
“Is there an escape door?”
That was De Wever’s reaction upon being asked about frozen Russian assets, the bulk of which are held in Belgium. The Belgian PM said he was grateful no one had raised it during the summit — until the press conference, that is. “Today, I was very happy, until I met you,” he told the journalist who asked for an update. But, he added, “I’m not Trump, I’m actually very nice.”
Frozen Russian assets are not “Putin’s little piggy bank that you can just break with a hammer and then take the money out and spend it on whatever you want.”
The Belgian PM didn’t mince his words when it comes to frozen Russian assets and the risks involved in confiscating the cash to support Ukraine. He added that it could be an “act of war.”
“I have the impression that I’m in a plane, and I want to be there, but what is the direction and who is the pilot?”
De Wever praised French President Emmanuel Macron for drumming up a “coalition of the willing” to boost military aid for Ukraine as U.S. support dwindles. But he said he’d pleaded for a bit more structure in the group. “We are willing — but willing to do what exactly?” he wondered.
“I’ve found that in Europe, people call five full days and nights [of talks] long negotiations. I said: ‘In Belgium, we call that a free weekend.’”
Negotiations on the European Union’s next seven-year budget, the so-called Multiannual Financial Framework, could get tough, De Wever predicted. But he also poked fun at EU leaders’ five-day-long talks to agree the current budget back in 2020. While they were legendary in EU circles, that extended timeline remains unimpressive to a weathered Belgian politician beaten down by monthslong coalition talks.
“You can’t dig your way out of a pit”
EU leaders will have to come up with a plan to pay back around €350 billion the EU borrowed for its COVID recovery fund. De Wever, for his part, warned against rolling over the debt. Belgium, “considering its deficit and debt, is very badly placed to play the frugal part, but I nonetheless tried my very best,” he joked.
“Satan has many faces. If you dance with him, he never changes; only you do. Those are biblical truths.”
Yes, that’s still him talking about debt.
Meloni is “one of the top dogs.”
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s statements carry weight around the European Council table, according to De Wever, who said she’s a “very pleasant woman” with “very good” political positioning. “If you look at the room and see whose words carry weight, then Meloni is obviously one of the top dogs in Europe right now.” Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and De Wever’s N-VA party are both in the European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR).
David Cameron and Boris Johnson tried their hand at “advanced political mathematics” in the Brexit referendum.
De Wever’s New Flemish Alliance joined the European Parliament’s right-wing ECR group at the insistence of then-U.K. Conservative leader David Cameron, who he said offered him an alliance “for eternity” — before Brexit removed his party and country from the EU. Cameron was sure he’d win the referendum, and Brexit figurehead Boris Johnson assured De Wever that he’d lose anyway — but get personal credit for winning Brexiteer votes. De Wever said he’d wondered: “The man who doesn’t have a plan for losing could lose anyway, and the man who has no plan for a victory might actually end up the winner.”
“I’m a Belgian politician: I can tell the difference between talking and negotiating very well.”
Negotiations require mediation and a clear target. U.S. President Donald Trump’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with Russian demands that would amount to a “true capitulation by Ukraine,” don’t appear to go beyond simply talking, De Wever argued. Trust the Belgian to tell the difference.
