Belgium’s Lavish Energy Use Sheds Light on More Than Just Its Roads<br />“The nuclear power lobby in Belgium not only dominates the energy market,” said Mr. De Keuleneer, the economist, “it also<br />dominates Belgium’s complex political system, exploiting conflict-of-interest situations on all government levels.”<br />That system has proved profitable for Electrabel.<br />“It also makes politics in Belgium quite a profitable profession.”<br />Mr. Reekmans recently published a book exposing hundreds of obscure government<br />structures involved in what he calls “ethically dubious decision-making.”<br />He estimates that about 10,000 remunerated seats on the governing boards of public utility<br />companies — not only in the energy sector — are occupied by local politicians.<br />The profits of electricity distribution companies are paid out “in dividends to the local municipalities<br />that own shares in them, and in salaries and stipends to the local politicians who sit on their oversight boards,” he explained.<br />Anne-Sophie Hugé, a spokeswoman for Electrabel, denied in an interview<br />that the company still maintained ties to state-owned distributor companies, since it sold its shares in those companies last year.<br />But critics doubt this and say the phenomenon sheds light not only on Belgium’s roads<br />but also on a mutually profitable relationship among its politicians, electricity distributors and main energy supplier, Electrabel.
