The Socialists are joining the ranks of the anti-Good Move movement. The mobility plan for the capital adopted by the PS and its partners seems untenable one month before the election. Paul Magnette’s eco-socialism is unlikely to ever be realised.
After months of struggling with a long and serious illness, we have learnt of the death of a concept. Belgian-style eco-socialism has not withstood the blow of the Brussels PS and its chairman Ahmed Laaouej. A few months ago, he refused to implement the government’s mobility plan, the so-called Good Move, in his municipality. He also tried to postpone the deadlines for the low-emission zone, which provides for a ban on the most polluting cars. He now believes that Good Move has failed and is a failure. In short, eco-socialism as a concept seems to be dead in Brussels, at least under the leadership of Ahmed Laaouej.
Ecosocialism is a concept that has existed since the 1970s. It aims to rethink Marxism in the face of new climatic and ecological realities. A rejection of productivism that Paul Magnette has taken up to try to reshape the software of Belgian socialism for several years now. A strategic reform in the face of challenges. A tactical reorientation also in view of the rise of Ecolo in 2019.
In practice, however, eco-socialism has struggled to find concrete realisations. It has also found it difficult to convince within the socialist forces, particularly in Brussels.
In Brussels, because there, more than in Wallonia, Ecolo succeeded in giving the government agreement a green touch. Five years ago, under the patronage of Laurette Onkelinx, the Socialists had agreed to an ambitious mobility plan aimed at rebalancing soft mobility towards the car. In plain language, this means reducing the car’s place in public spaces. Generalisation of 30 km/h, new cycle paths instead of lanes, Good Move Plan, reduction of parking spaces and increase in charges. All these political measures have led to frustration among many motorists.
In the municipalities in the north of Brussels, the PTB has won back part of the PS electorate with openly car-friendly rhetoric and portrayed the lower classes as victims of the cycling bobos. The MR, which also performs well in the polls, maintains a car-friendly rhetoric in favour of other population groups.
Ahmed Laaouej, who has replaced Laurette Onkelinx in the Brussels PS, attributes the spectacular erosion of the Socialists in the polls to this mobility policy. This makes many Brussels socialists doubt and question this eco-socialism from above. Many, but not all. Philippe Close and Caroline Désir, for example, remain committed to eco-socialism, but in view of the polls, they are giving Ahmed Laaouej a try.
The PS is therefore in trouble in Brussels. And a month before the elections, it is full of self-doubt. For over a year now, the PS has been estranged from the Greens. The Josaphat dossier, which the government blocked for several weeks, shows this. But the statements made by Ahmed Laaouej a month before the election in this polarised debate now place the PS, together with the MR and the PTB, in the camp of the pro-car parties vis-à-vis the Greens. The voters will show whether this clarification was salutary for the PS or whether it was a desperate manoeuvre by a party that doubts its political identity.
Good Move, les socialistes enterrent l’éco-socialisme – RTBF Actus