The House and the Flemish Parliament must pay up to 20 million euros to parliamentarians who have not been re-elected. The newspaper De Tijd calculated this. In 2019, the amount was even higher, at almost 22 million, the newspaper said.
In the federal parliament, 73 of the 150 representatives who were seated before the elections were not re-elected. Including the two unelected Ecolo ministers Marie-Colline Leroy and Georges Gilkinet, they are entitled to 12.4 million euros in exit compensation.
The Flemish Parliament must pay 54 non-re-elected parliamentarians 7.7 million euros in stop premiums.
To prevent these ex-parliamentarians from losing their income overnight, their salary will continue for a while. The House’s regulations are in principle more generous than those of the Flemish Parliament. Moreover, an exceptional regime applies to MPs with many years of age: after all, a more favorable regime applied until 2014 and those rights continue to be acquired.
The parliaments do not pay the compensation automatically, but only if an application has been made. Some MPs such as Patrick Dewael (Open VLD) and Servais Verherstraeten (CD&V) have already made it clear that they are only asking for half of their compensation, while outgoing members of the PVDA-PTB faction say that they will not apply.