Hadja Lahbib | |
|---|---|
 Lahbib in 2024 | |
| Minister of Foreign Affairs | |
| Assumed office 15 July 2022 | |
| Prime Minister | Alexander De Croo |
| Preceded by | Sophie Wilmès |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 21 June 1970 Boussu,Belgium |
| Political party | MR |
| Occupation |
|
Hadja Lahbib (born 21 June 1970) is a Belgian journalist, TV presenter, director and politician, serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belgium since July 2022.
Hadja Lahbib was born on 21 June 1970 in Boussu, near the city of Mons, to a family of Algerian origin. [1]
Lahbib graduated in journalism from the Free University of Brussels and worked for a long time for the Belgian Radio-Television of the French Community (RTBF). In particular, she was a special correspondent in Afghanistan and the Middle East, and presented the television news for two decades. In May 2013, she presented the final of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, but she refused explicitly to mention the winner had Israeli nationality. She also conspicuously refused to translate a sentence that referred to Israel. [2] [3]
Lahbib visited politically disputed Crimea between Russia and Ukraine in July 2021. [4] She did not tell how exactly she got there and did not recognize Crimea as the territory of Ukraine. [4] She went to the "Global Values" festival, which is organized by the Sevastopol Academic Russian Drama Theater named after Lunacharsky and organized by Katerina Tikhonova, daughter of Vladimir Putin. [4] [5] In 2021, it was held on 23–25 July. On Instagram, she published fragments of a choreographic performance from the festival. After the trip, she was asked by RTBF whether she was coming back from Russia or Ukraine. Lahbib did not answer clearly, but said: "To land at Simferopol airport, a Russian visa is required." [4] [6] [7]
In her capacity as Foreign Minister, she condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine, expressed full support for Ukraine [8] and called the occupation of Crimea illegal. [9]
Prior to her appointment as foreign minister on 15 July 2022, Lahbib was only politically active with the socialist organisation, Solidaris, and she was not a member of the liberal Reformist Movement (MR), whose leader Georges-Louis Bouchez unexpectedly nominated her for the post of Belgian Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs to replace Sophie Wilmès. She took the oath before King Philippe on the same day. At the press conference at which she was introduced, she said about her political position:
"I am not left, not right, but fundamentally free". [10] [11]
After the interview, Georges-Louis Bouchez asked her to join MR, and she did so.
On 7 October 2022, Lahbib and two lawmakers – Darya Safai and Goedele Liekens – cut their hair in parliament, in solidarity with anti-government demonstrations in Iran triggered by the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. [12]
On 26 November 2022, Lahbib and prime minister Alexander De Croo visited Ukraine. [13]
In June 2023, Lahbib won a vote of no-confidence in parliament after granting visas to delegations from Iranian and Russian cities to attend a mayors' convention in Brussels earlier that month. Her MR party had threatened to leave the government if she had to resign, which would have made the government collapse. [14]
The Federal Government of Belgium exercises executive power in the Kingdom of Belgium. It consists of ministers and secretary of state drawn from the political parties which form the governing coalition. The federal government is led by the prime minister of Belgium, and ministers lead ministries of the government. Ministers together form the Council of Ministers, which is the supreme executive organ of the government.
Alexander De Croo is a Belgian politician and businessman who has served as the prime minister of Belgium since October 2020.
In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it. This took place in the relative power vacuum immediately following the Revolution of Dignity. It marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The Crimean problem or the Crimean question is a dispute over the status of Crimea between Ukraine and Russia.
The Council of Ministers is the supreme executive organ of the Federal Government of the Kingdom of Belgium. It is a cabinet composed of the Prime Minister, who leads it, and up to fourteen senior ministers. Federal secretaries of state are members of the government, but not part of the Council. The King of the Belgians historically presided over the Council, but this has not happened since 1957. The Council of Ministers formally became a permanent policy structure with the constitutional revision of 1970.
Hadja Makalé Camara is a Guinean lawyer, diplomat and politician who has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guinea from 4 January 2016 to 2017.
Léonard She Okitundu Lundula is a Congolese diplomat who has served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and one of the Vice Prime Ministers of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since December 2016 until March 2019. He has formerly held a number of other government offices in the DRC and Zaïre, being the Foreign Minister before (2000–2003), a Senator, and also chief of staff of President Joseph Kabila's administration.
The siege of Southern Naval Base lasted from 3 March 2014 until its definitive capture on 27 March 2014. The action began with the blockade of Donuzlav bay by the Russian missile cruiser Moskva. The Russian Navy later scuttled the Russian anti-submarine ship Ochakov and several smaller vessels in the mouth of the bay to prevent Ukrainian ships from sailing to open sea and reaching the Ukrainian fleet in Odesa. As a result, 13 Ukrainian ships were bottled up and eventually captured by Russia in Donuzlav bay. The blockade ended when the Russian Navy seized the last ship under the Ukrainian flag in Crimea, the minesweeper Cherkasy.
David Clarinval is a Belgian politician of the Reformist Movement who has been serving as Minister of the Middle Class, SMEs, Self-employed, Agriculture, Social Integration and Urban Policy in the government of Prime Minister Alexander De Croo since 2020.
Philippe Goffin is a Belgian politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defence from 30 November 2019 to 1 October 2020.
The Lublin Triangle is a regional alliance of three European countries – Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine – for the purposes of strengthening mutual military, cultural, economic and political cooperation and supporting Ukraine's integration into the European Union and NATO. The Lublin Triangle initiative invokes the integrative heritage of the 1569 Union of Lublin.
The De Croo Government is the incumbent Federal Government of Belgium, led by Prime Minister Alexander De Croo since 1 October 2020.
The Crimea Platform is a diplomatic summit initiated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in August 2021 and attended by delegations from 46 countries. It is designed to be an international coordination mechanism to restore Russia–Ukraine relations by means of reversing the 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. The protection of the human rights of Crimean Tatars, environmental degradation and the stifling of trade in the Black and Azov Sea region are also matters discussed at the summit.
Emine Aiiarovna Dzhaparova is a Crimean Tatar-Ukrainian journalist, editor, television presenter, and politician. She was appointed the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine (2020-2024).
Mykola Stanislavovych Tochytskyi, is a Ukrainian diplomat and politician who is currently the deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2021.
The Yellow Ribbon, is a resistance movement in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Created in April 2022 after the Russian military invasion, the goal of the movement is informational resistance against the Russian occupation in Ukraine.
Nariman Narketovych Bilialov, better known as Isa Akaiev, is a Ukrainian Crimean Tatar civic activist and junior sergeant of the Main Directorate of Intelligence.
Media related to Hadja Lahbib at Wikimedia Commons
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
