The House and Flemish Parliament will have to pay up to 20 million euros in compensation to the parliamentarians who were not re-elected, according to calculations by De Tijd. This is a lower amount compared to 2019, where it was close to 22 million euros.
In the federal parliament, 73 out of the 150 representatives who were seated before the elections did not win re-election. This includes two unelected Ecolo ministers, Marie-Colline Leroy and Georges Gilkinet, who are entitled to 12.4 million euros in exit compensation. Similarly, the Flemish Parliament also has 54 non-re-elected parliamentarians who will receive a total of 7.7 million euros in stop premiums.
The ex-parliamentarians will continue to receive their salary for a period of time before they can find other employment opportunities. The regulations of the House are generally more generous than those of the Flemish Parliament. Furthermore, MPs with many years of service are subject to an exceptional regime, as a more favorable regime was in place before 2014 and those rights are still valid.
The compensation is not automatically paid out by the parliaments but requires an application from the affected parliamentarians. Some MPs like Patrick Dewael and Servais Verherstraeten have indicated that they will only apply for a portion of their compensation while members of PVDA-PTB faction have stated that they will not be applying for any compensation at all.
