Wilfried Martens
President of the European People's Party
Incumbent
Assumed office 1990
Preceded by	Jacques Santer
Prime Minister of Belgium
In office 17 December 1981 – 7 March 1992
Monarch	Baudouin
Preceded by	Mark Eyskens
Succeeded by	Jean-Luc Dehaene
In office 3 April 1979 – 31 March 1981
Monarch	Baudouin
Preceded by	Paul Vanden Boeynants
Succeeded by	Mark Eyskens
Leader of the European People's Party-European Democrats
In office 20 July 1994 – 20 July 1999
Preceded by	Leo Tindemans
Succeeded by	Hans-Gert Pöttering
Personal details
Born	(1936-04-19) 19 April 1936 (age 76) Evergem, Belgium
Political party	Christian Democratic and Flemish
Spouse(s)	Lieve Verschroeven (Divorced) Ilse Schouteden (1998–2007) Miet Smet (2008–present)
Alma mater	Catholic University of Leuven Harvard University
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Website	Official website

Wilfried Martens (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈβ̞ɪlfɾiˑt ˈmɑɾtəns] ( listen); born Wilfried Achiel Emma Martens, 19 April 1936) is a Belgian politician. He was born in Sleidinge (East Flanders). Martens was the 44th Prime Minister of Belgium from 3 April 1979 to 6 April 1981 and 17 December 1981 to 7 March 1992.

Martens was a Chair of the Belgian Christian People's Party (now renamed Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V)) from 1972–79, sitting as a Deputy in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives (federal parliament) from 1974–91, and serving as a Senator from 1991 – 94.

He co-founded the European People's Party (EPP) in 1976 and has been EPP President since 1992.

From 1993 he was President of the European Union of Christian Democrats (EUCD), until its merger with the EPP in 1996. Martens also negotiated with Finnish conservative politician Sauli Niinistö the merger of the European Democrat Union (EDU) into the EPP (formally concluded in 2002). The successful fusion of all centre-right European organisations into the EPP – currently the largest transnational European political party with 75 member-parties from 40 countries – is widely recognised as an important achievement of his European political legacy.

From 1994 to 1998, he was a Member of the European Parliament, chairing the EPP Group.

From October 2000 to November 2001 he was also the President of the Christian Democrat International (CDI).

He re-appeared on the Belgian political stage on 22 December 2008 to help in the 2007–2011 Belgian political crisis.

Martens holds a doctorate in law, a degree in notarial studies, as well as a baccalaureate in Thomistic philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain. He also studied international political science at Harvard University. He has practised law at the Ghent Court of Appeal.

Among numerous national and international distinctions, he was honoured in 1998 with the Charles V Prize for his contribution to European Union.

Private life[link]

Martens has five children: two from his first marriage with Lieve Verschroeven (Kris and Anne) and three with Ilse Schouteden (Sarah, Sophie and Simon). After the birth of their twins in 1997 they married on 13 November 1998. Ilse Schouteden has a son from her previous marriage. In 2007 he divorced his second wife. On 27 September 2008 he married Miet Smet, a former Belgian minister. It was his third marriage and her first.

See also[link]

• Pierre Carette

External links[link]

Media related to Wilfried Martens at Wikimedia Commons

• [1]
• EPP President's page
• Wilfried Martens' CV
• Wilfried Martens on Flickr
• Wilfried Martens on Facebook
• Wilfried Martens' autobiography (book in English)

v t e Prime Ministers of Belgium de Gerlache · Lebeau · de Muelenaere · Goblet d'Alviella · de Meylandt · Lebeau · Nothomb · Van de Weyer · de Meylandt · Rogier · de Brouckère · de Decker · Rogier · Frère-Orban · d'Anethan · Malou · Frère-Orban · Malou · Beernaert · de Burlet · de Smet de Naeyer · Vandenpeereboom · de Smet de Naeyer · de Trooz · Schollaert · de Broqueville · Cooreman · Delacroix · Carton de Wiart · Theunis · Van de Vyvere · Poullet · Jaspar · Renkin · de Broqueville · Theunis · van Zeeland · Janson · Spaak · Pierlot · Van Acker · Spaak · Van Acker · Huysmans · Spaak · G. Eyskens · Duvieusart · Pholien · Van Houtte · Van Acker · G. Eyskens · Lefèvre · Harmel · Vanden Boeynants · G. Eyskens · Leburton · Tindemans · Vanden Boeynants · Martens · M. Eyskens · Martens · Dehaene · Verhofstadt · Leterme · Van Rompuy · Leterme · Di Rupo

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Pierre Carette (born 16 December 1952 in Charleroi, Belgium) was the leader of the Belgian extreme-left terrorist group Communist Combatant Cells or CCC. Although Carette was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment for terrorist attacks, he was released in 2003. However, he was briefly arrested again on 5 June 2008 because of a parole violation, but was released by the court on 18 June.^[1]

Life and work[link]

Pierre Carette became politically active when establishing a committee striving for the release of captured members of the Red Army Faction (RAF) in West Germany. Before that, he had already distributed printwork calling for armed struggle against capitalism, including translation of RAF-pamphlets. In 1982, he published a magazine called "Subversion" for a while. Shortly afterwards, he was a driving force for the establishment of the CCC. Starting in October 1984, this group carried out a series of attacks on political and military targets (but not people), until the apprehension of Carette and three other members in a fastfood restaurant in Namur on 16 December 1985.

The CCC-members were brought to trial in 1988. In October 1988, Carette was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment,^[2] mainly because of an attack on the building of the Federation of Belgian Enterprises (VBO) in Brussels on 1 May 1985, when two firemen were killed in spite of a warning.^[3]

On 23 February 2003, Carette was the last CCC-member to be released from prison. In October 2002, he had given an interview to journalists of the VRT television program "Ter Zake" without permission. In September 2003, he confronted Wilfried Martens on the television program "Nachtwacht".^[4] Martens was the prime minister of Belgium at the time of the attacks, and even received police protection against the CCC. Carette stated that he still has the same convictions and that his struggle continues.^[3]

Pierre Carette was arrested again on 5 June 2008, after police arrested a number of Belgians with ties to the Political-Military Communist Party, which had been plotting terror attacks in Italy. Some of those arrested had been CCC-members,^[5] and it was found that he had re-established contact with them, which had been prohibited by his parole conditions.^[6] However, as his parole conditions had been modified to allow him to have contact with his CCC associates in a peaceful context, and the police had not bugged his telephone calls with Bertrand Sassoye, there was no way to prove that his contact with Sassoye had been other than peaceful.^[7]

Footnotes[link]

1. ^ Metdepenningen, Marc (June 19, 2008). "L’ex-chef des CCC, qui a respecté sa libération conditionnelle, est libre" (in French). Le Soir. http://archives.lesoir.be/justice-l-ex-chef-des-ccc-qui-a-respecte-sa_t-20080619-00GKQR.html. Retrieved 11 July 2011. 
2. ^ "Engelen des doods; CCC-kopstukken blikken terug op hun aanslagen; documentaire". De Standaard. 25 March 2004. http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/DetailAbo.aspx?artikelId=GOO4RL1M.  (Dutch)
3. ^ ^{a b} "CCC'er Carette blijft zijn politieke idealen trouw; CCC is niet meer, maar ik strijd voort". De Standaard. 26 February 2003. http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/DetailAbo.aspx?artikelId=DST26022003_007.  (Dutch)
4. ^ "Confrontatie Carette-Martens". De Standaard. 20 September 2003. http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/DetailAbo.aspx?artikelId=DST20092003_073.  (Dutch)
5. ^ "Four terror suspects remain in custody". flandersnews.be. 6 June 2008. http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/news/1.318994. 
6. ^ "Two former Belgium terrorists nabbed". UPI.com. 6 June 2008. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/06/06/Two_former_Belgium_terrorists_nabbed/UPI-50381212781052/. 
7. ^ "Pierre Carette libéré ce soir" (in French). RTL.be. 18 June 2008. http://www.rtl.be/info/belgique/faitsdivers/141018/pierre-carette-libere-ce-soir. 

Miet Smet
Senator
In office 12 July 2007 (2007-07-12) – June 2010
Member of the Flemish Parliament
Incumbent
Assumed office 2004
Member of the European Parliament
In office 1999–2004
Personal details
Born	(1943-04-05) 5 April 1943 (age 69) Sint-Niklaas
Nationality	Belgian
Political party	Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams
Spouse(s)	Wilfried Martens
Residence	Lokeren
Committees	President and Chair of AWEPA
Website	www.mietsmet.be

Miet Smet (Sint-Niklaas, 5 April 1943) is a Belgian politician for the Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V).

Miet Smet was the founder (1973) and first president (until 1982) of the Christian People's Party political women's organisation, Vrouw en Maatschappij (Woman and Society).^[1]

She was elected to the Belgian Chamber of People's Representatives in 1978. In 1985 she became State Secretary of Environmental Affairs, and negotiated an Equal Opportunities portfolio. While Smet's competencies cover all aspects of social emancipation, she focused on violence against women, women's economic position and their participation in decision-making. When Miet Smet became Minister of Labour and Employment in 1991, she kept the Equal Opportunities portfolio.^[2]

When she was offered first place in the CD&V list for the European elections in 1999 instead of Wilfried Martens, Martens, at the instigation of then-wife Ilse Schouteden, refused to run at all.^[3][4]

Miet Smet was a Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004.

She became a Minister of State in 2002, and has been a member of the Flemish Parliament since 2004, and a Belgian senator since 2007.^[5]

On 27 September 2008, she married fellow CD&V politician and former Belgian Prime Minister Wilfried Martens.^[6]

Ms. Smet currently serves as president of the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA).^[7] She was elected in 2009 and took over from former president Dr. Jan Nico Scholten.

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Miet Smet