Outgoing MP Valerie Van Peel (N-VA) did not get her bill on asbestos approved. Afterwards, she lashes out at Open Vld. The Liberals let silence fall.
Not the airport was news in the Wetstraat over the past 24 hours. But the 'exit' of MP Valerie Van Peel was. The latter , as expected, finally failed to pass her bill to lift the immunity of asbestos producers. For the fourth time she tried, but only Vlaams Belang and PVDA, the other opposition parties, voted along. Vivaldi's majority did not, and so it fell.
Theatrically, Van Peel stepped up into the Chamber, followed by the cameras, after the chairman of the Social Affairs Committee wanted to "move on to the next item." "Pretend all of you are still Members of Parliament. Really. The next item! You should be ashamed to death."
Van Peel, the former vice president of N-VA, but as a former journalist also someone who finds her way to the media very easily, then also made fun in the newspapers and TV studios of the party that she believes is responsible for boycotting her proposals: Open Vld.
After all, she claimed that Eternit, the major producer of asbestos, had now won. "Rest assured that today at Eternit the bottles of champagne are popping. Once again they are being politically protected. For nearly two decades the same long arms are still holding it back that they have to pay for the cost."
"The cynical thing is that for years there has been a majority in favor of this, but it is always met with liberal opposition. All the opposition is in favor, the Greens are in favor, so are CD&V and Progress, and yet Open Vld is holding it back from themajority," Van Peel stated in Het Laatste Nieuws. And more: "The majority must look in the mirror tonight and realize that their arm was wrung by Open Vld," she confided to Het Nieuws blad.
Among the Liberals, MP Tania De Jonge (Open Vld) tried to provide some counterpoint in the House, arguing that Van Peel's proposal would jeopardize the current Asbestos Fund. "If you touch the immunity (of the producers, ed.), then you touch the fund, and the victims are even further from home," she argued. Within the majority, that explanation was followed: Van Peel's proposal did have legal dangers in it.
But the stopping powerin the media is rather limited, and thus Open Vld took a lot of damage. To the frustration of quite a few people in their own ranks, among the Flemish liberals. "Why didn't anyone with media experience jump on this, or didn't the president go to the studio to offer a response? We are now allowing ourselves to be slaughtered without a rebuttal."
Eternit SA, formerly Industrias Eternit SA, is a Brazil-based company engaged in the manufacture and sale of construction materials made from fiber cement, cement, concrete, plaster, metal and plastic. The Companyâs products include roof coverings and shapes made from fiber-cement and cement reinforced with synthetic fiber; metallic roof coverings; ceramic sanitary ware; wall panels; water tanks; water filters for pipes, and metallic shapes used in the construction of roofing and walls, among others. Additionally, the Companyâs subsidiary Sama SA Mineracoes Associadas is engaged in the extraction and processing of chrysotile asbestos. As of December 31, 2011, the Company operated four plants located in the Brazilian states of Bahia, Goias, Parana and Rio de Janeiro, and had a number of subsidiaries, such as Engedis Distribuicao Ltda, Precon Goias Industrial Ltda and Wagner Ltda, among others. In February 2012, the Company entered in the segment of metal sanitary ware.
ETERNIT S.A. 
