Belgium's outgoing Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Flemish liberal) is to convene a task force as soon as possible to look into possible future prospects for the site of the Audi car plant in the Brussels municipality of Vorst. Mr De Croo made the announcement in the Federal Parliament on Thursday.
The outgoing PM was questioned about the closure of Audi Brussels by MPs from several political parties on Thursday afternoon. MPs expressed concern about reports that as yet no candidate had been found to take over the plant. Mr De Croo stressed the potential of site that is located in the southwest of Brussels and said that he would collaborate closely with the regions, primarily the Brussels-Capital Region but also Flanders and Wallonia where many of those that work at the Audi factory live, to ensure that industry will still have a future a site. He also stressed that Audi also has a responsibility, not least to the around 2,900 people that will lose their jobsas a result of the plant’s closure.
Mr De Croo stressed that the Federal Government had been on the side of those that work at Audi Brussels employees from the outset. However, the current state of the European vehicle market is “unprecedented”. The outgoing Federal PM also expressed concern about the “tense” nature of the negotiations concerning severance terms and a social plan for those that stand to lose their jobs at Audi Brussels.
The Francophone socialist (PS) group in the Federal Parliament said that a proposal to set up a committee of enquiry in the closure of Audi Brussels will be discussed in at a meeting of the Federal Parliament’s Economics Select Committee that will take place next week.