PS excludes Brussels mayor after meeting with far-right Turkish Mayors
The Francophone socialist party PS has excluded the Mayor of the Brussels Municipality of Sint-Joost-ten-Node Emir Kir for having met with a delegation of Mayors that included two members of a far-right party with links to the Grey Wolves. Mr Kir is also a federal MP. His exclusion from the Francophone socialist party means that any coalition made up of socialists, liberals and greens would, on paper at least, not have a majority in the Federal Parliament.
Whether or not this will have an impact on the efforts to try and get coalition talks on the rails remains to be seen.
The PS’ Disciplinary Commission met on Friday evening to discuss a complaint it had received about Mr Kir from a party activists. The complaint was made after Mr Kir had met with a delegation of six Turkish Mayor, two of whom were from the far-right. The Mayors were in Brussels for a meeting at the European institutions.
Mr Kir has never denied that the meeting took place. However, he has been keen to stress that he didn’t invite the two far-right politicians as such.
On Tuesday Mr Kir was questioned by the Disciplinary Commission. He told the commission that “I reaffirm that I subscribe to the values of the PS and repeat my strong condemnation of the far-right”.
Mr Kir acknowledged that he had made an error of judgement and said that he would be “more vigilant” in future.
The Mayor and federal MP now has 30 days to appeal against his exclusion.