Car crash claims life of Belgian MEP

Date: 06/09/01

BELGIAN MEP and former government minister Jacques Santkin died last Tuesday (28 August) following a car crash.

The 52-year-old had been in a coma for more than a month in a Liège hospital after the motorway accident in the Belgian Ardennes.

The former Belgian minister for public health became an MEP in February, replacing Freddy Thielemans when he took office as mayor of Brussels.

Santkin sat on the foreign affairs and defence committee and the delegation for relations with the Palestinian legislative council. He was also a substitute member of the environment committee and the temporary committee investigating US electronic spying network, Echelon.

MEPs observed a minute's silence for him during the first meeting of their plenary session in Strasbourg this week. Santkin's seat as an MEP will be taken by Véronique Dekeyser, a professor of psychology at the University of Liège.