Having spent 31 years in parliament, the ADR's Gast Gibéryen carries strong opinions about the current political landscape, keeping a critical eye at current affairs with some praise to spare. He offered a generally positive assessment of the first three years of the CSV-DP coalition's work. In an interview with RTL on Monday morning, he acknowledged that there had been change in parliament, describing a generally different policy approach – one he deems decent. He noted that the ADR often votes with the coalition on legislation rather than taking an oppositional stance for its own sake.
He described several recent reforms, including the tripartite, pension, and constitutional reforms, and acknowledged that "a lot of good things" were included in the current government's tax reform plans. Still, he expressed concern that, in many areas, the new government is simply continuing the previous administration’s policies. Gibéryen was particularly critical of the constitutional reform, referencing the inclusion of abortion rights in the constitution, alleging that "no party is questioning the current legal provisions, so there was no need for it."
He argued that the CSV – where the C stands for Christian – facilitated this change by providing the left parties with the required majority, and said it "should at least have the decency to remove the C from its name". He stressed that by granting the left parties that qualified majority, the CSV has made it so those provisions can no longer be removed from the constitution even if a future majority wanted to.
If you are a fan of spoken word, poetry, jazz and euphoric dance music, you need to win tickets to see Joshua Idehen this weekend at the Rotonde
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