The Belgian political course has started this year ahead of schedule with an extraordinary meeting of the federal Parliament. The reason has not been the rise in crime in Antwerp, the reception of refugees or the insecurity in Brussels train stations, to name some of the most immediate crises facing Belgium, but much more shameful events. The press of the country of Manneken Pis has dubbed the scandal as pipigate.
The confusing sequence of events and explanations that followed the release of images from Justice Minister Vincent van Quickenborne's 50th birthday party, in which several men are seen urinating on a police van parked next to his house in Kortrijk, this week forced the Flemish liberal politician to appear before the Justice commission to clarify what happened during the night of August 14 to 15.
It was the Flemish public television, VRT, that revealed the existence of the images, now in the possession of the Prosecutor's Office. The minister reacted to the news by declaring himself indignant and assuring that he knew nothing. But the publication, days later, of another video, in which Van Quickenborne himself is seen in the street, next to the car, looking at his cell phone and leaning in a way that some interpret as an imitation of urinating, cast doubt on the veracity of his words.
"I could sink to the ground with the shame I feel," Van Quickenborne told deputies on Thursday. “It seems surreal to me to have to describe every minute of that night. But that's what they ask of me, so I'm going to do it," he said, warning that he stood firm on his version of events and that he was not going to allow himself to be "crucified in public." The deputies waited expectantly for his explanations. The incident has only further strained his relations with the police. The context of the surveillance of the minister is not a minor detail to understand the relevance that the case has gained: the police discovered a year ago that there were plans to kidnap him, and Van Quickenborne and his family have spent time imprisoned in a secret place .
The minister assured the deputies that he found out from the press about the actions of his guests and took advantage of the appearance to apologize to the police for their "disgusting" and "inadmissible" behavior. There are records of three urinary outputs: one at 8:39 p.m., another at 10:05 p.m. and one more at midnight. In addition to urinating on the van and recording themselves with their cell phone while they carried out the feat, they also entered it and took several selfies. There appeared to be no officers inside the vehicle and the doors were not locked.
The minister also explained that all his friends came to the party dressed in white because he requested it, due to their "contestant" nature, since in reality they are all fans of heavy metal music. The detail is important, according to the minister, to understand another video recorded at four in the morning by security cameras in which he is seen chatting with a man on the street. It was late and he doesn't remember what exactly he was doing at the time, but his friend thinks he was “pretending to play the guitar.” The “gesture” can be “equivocal”, he admitted this week in another surreal moment of the pipigate, when Van Quickenborne went on television with images recorded by his own cameras to explain his movements. He also took a selfie with a friend next to the car, but he only approached it to lock it, he maintains. According to him, the video in question does not prove that he knew about the urinary excursions of his friends nor, therefore, that he lied.
"You do not transmit the serenity that one would expect from you," Christoph D'Haese, of the Flemish opposition party N-VA, reproached him. A police union and the far-right Vlaams Belang party have called for his resignation, but the explanations have, for the moment, satisfied his government partners, all of whom are embarrassed by the image that the scandal gives to the country.
