Justice minister Annelies Verlinden has Bart De Wever’s “full support”, the prime minister said on Tuesday in the Chamber, where the opposition raised questions about the failed i-Police digitisation project.
I-Police was awarded to French IT consultant Sopra Steria during the previous legislature under the jurisdiction of Verlinden (CD&V), who was then Interior minister. Her successor, Bernard Quintin (MR), cancelled the project late last year. With almost 76 million euros spent on it, there was “no tangible result”, he concluded after an evaluation.
Last month, the House Committee on Home Affairs decided to arrange hearings on the issue. It was then revealed last weekend that Verlinden had previously acted as a lawyer for Sopra Steria, a fact she had not disclosed.
“You have a problem and that problem is called Annelies Verlinden,” Groen MP Matti Vandemaele said. Notifying of previous contacts with Sopra Steria was “the minimum minimorum for a top lawyer”, he said.
Paul Van Tigchelt (Anders), who was Justice minister in the previous government, “did not want to mention the words conflict of interest”, but did call on the prime minister to ask the federal deontological commission to evaluate the matter.
“As a lawyer, you are not your client, you assist them”
“I almost fall off my chair from the insinuations and imputations,” said Verlinden’s party colleague Steven Matheï. “Ms Verlinden had a different life with other professional activities before she was a minister. (…) As a lawyer, you are not your client, you assist them.”
He said Verlinden had intervened in the previous legislature when it appeared that i-Police was derailing, requesting an audit and implementing a reorganisation.
De Wever told a press conference ahead of the session that her performance “is not in question as far as I am concerned”, adding that she has his “full support as a minister in the government”.
He said there were no indications that Verlinden would have favoured Sopra Steria because she once acted as a lawyer for the firm, and that past is irrelevant. “She was also once a lawyer for the city of Antwerp; I have never noticed that she favours Antwerp in her policies,” he said.
“You have a problem and that problem is called Annelies Verlinden”
He advised waiting for the hearings. If those “prove what I personally do not believe in, namely that there was a preferential relationship between Verlinden and Sopra Steria, then the question will become extremely relevant. Until then, I think it is mood creation.”
Within the governing majority, relations with Verlinden have been strained for some time. The government has been seeking solutions to prison overcrowding for months.
According to coalition partners, the Justice minister systematically blocks compromise proposals. De Wever said he was working with her on the issue to find structural solutions.
Bart De Wever at the Interior Affairs Commission, Brussels, 3 February 2026 © BELGA PHOTO MARIUS BURGELMAN
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