It is a scandal which is affecting the ranks of the Flemish far right, one of whose members is accused of being at the heart of Chinese interference. “Ultimately the extremists do not serve our interests, nor the interests of the Belgians nor those of the Flemish, they sell them,” quipped Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on Thursday December 21 in front of the Federal Parliament. He was referring to the suspicions directed towards a member of Vlaams Belang (VB), who allegedly acted under the orders of China in exchange for tidy sums…
It’s an investigation, published Friday December 15 by three media European (The world, The Financial Times and Der Spiegel) which created a lot of commotion. To do this, they consulted a series of emails incriminating Frank Creyelman – 62 years old, senator of the VB between 1999 and 2007, deputy from 2007 to 2014 and still municipal councilor in the province of Antwerp – as the relay in Brussels of an operation carried out by a Chinese intelligence agent to influence Belgian positions.
The mission would have started in 2019, when China ordered from the member of the VB a report on Charles Michel, Belgian Prime Minister at the time, when he was preparing to take over the presidency of the European Council (representing the 27 countries of the EU), according to the investigation by the three media.
Frank Creyelman’s role would have been to influence questions relating to pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong or plans for sanctions against the Chinese operator Huawei, or even the persecution of the Uighurs. For this, the former parliamentarian would have received according to The world between 6,000 and 10,000 euros per “mission”.
Two Creyelmans involved?
On Thursday, the head of the current government Alexander De Croo confirmed having been informed in early December by Belgian intelligence that China was responsible for an interference operation for which it allegedly paid a Belgian elected official. Thus, a “Chinese agent from the Ministry of State Security” would have been responsible for “influencing Belgian and European parliamentary work”, he added, judging it “inadmissible for our system to be manipulated in this way.” democratic”.
The affair embarrasses Vlaams Belang all the more as Frank Creyelman’s brother, Steven Creyelman, who is one of the 18 deputies of this movement in the Federal Parliament, is suspected of having been aware of the influence operation. His name appeared in messages exchanged between his brother and his Chinese contact.
“In one of them, the latter asked him to approach Steven Creyelman to try to block certain parliamentary texts,” specifies the investigation by the World. A strategic contact, since the federal deputy chaired until last Thursday the parliamentary commission responsible for supervising the country’s military purchases, as well as shipments of war material to Ukraine.
The affair that stirs the ashes
The party partially acknowledged the interference, with its president Tom Van Grieken reacting to “information that is unacceptable if true.” From the day the investigation was published, he declared the exclusion of Frank Creyelman, and removed Steven Creyelman “with immediate effect” from the presidency of the Parliament’s military procurement committee, considering that the latter had committed “a serious error of judgment” by not informing the VB about this “attempt to influence”.
The affair awakens old demons for Vlaams Belang, since in 2018 a historic figure of the far-right party and close to the Creyelmans, Filip Dewinter, had already been accused by state security of having acted on behalf of the Chinese government.
The same Chinese agent, Daniel Woo, is also suspected of being behind these two corruption cases. The House of Representatives requested an urgent opinion from State Security, which is now investigating the exact role of the two brothers.