Jan Jambon

Johan "Jan" Martin Jozef Jambon(born 26 April 1960) is aBelgianbusinessman and politician of theNew Flemish Alliance(N-VA) who has been serving as a Deputy Prime Minister and as theMinister of Finance, Pensions, National Lottery and Federal Culture Institutions in theDe Wever Governmentsince february 2025. Before that, he served asMinister-President of Flandersfrom 2019 to 2024. He replacedKris Peetersas a member of theBelgian Chamber of Representativesin 2007. The N-VA was, at that time, partnered with theChristian-Democratic and Flemishparty.In June 2010 and May 2014, he was re-elected on an N-VA list.
He became mayor ofBrasschaatin 2013 after his party won the local elections in 2012.In November 2014, he was replaced as acting mayor byKoen Verberck(alsoN-VA), after joining the newFederal Government.
In October 2014, he became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior and Security, charged with the direction of public buildings, in theMichel Government.Jambon remained in this position until the government fell in December 2018.
In 2019, he became the new Flemish Minister-President of the Jambon government. He is also the mayor of the municipality ofBrasschaat. Jambon stepped down as Minister-President with the formation of theDiependaele Government, following the2024 regional election.
Janbon was born inGenkin April 1960. He was educated at the Sint-Jan Berchmanscollege Catholic School in Genk before studying for a degree incomputer scienceat theVrije Universiteit Brusselfollowed by anMBAin business at theUniversity of Antwerp.
From 1984 to 1992, Janbon worked as an accounts manager forIBMbefore working as an administrative manager for theTeam SD Worx–Protimecycling team from 1993 to 1996. He subsequently worked atCorelio(now part ofMediahuis) which publishesDe Standaard,Het NieuwsbladandHet Volkas a regional director and the head of customer service in Antwerp. In 2002, he switched to working in the financial sector and became general manager of the Bank Card Company, the issuer of the credit cardsVISAandMasterCard.
Jan Jambon began his political career with the Volksunie Youth (VUJO) in Limburg, the youth chapter of the Flemish nationalistVolksunie. From 1985 to 1988, he was a member of the main board of the national Volksunie Youth and chief editor of the monthly magazineWIJ-Jongeren.He belonged to the "right wing" and more Flemish nationalist orientated faction of the party. Their position on the placement of nuclear weapons was diametrically opposed to the official VU party position. Jambon left the party behind in 1988, when nothing came of the so-called Third Phase of state reform. The broadening operation led byHugo SchiltzandJaak Gabriëlsalso proved difficult for him to digest, as did the election of the 'left-wing' member of parliament Herman Lauwers, national chairman of the VVKSM Scouts fromBrasschaat. As a result He left the party in 1988 after the broadening operation wanted by Hugo Schiltz and Jaak Gabriëls, and moved with Peter De Roover to the advocacy groupVlaamse Volksbeweging(VVB).
Jambon is believed to have helped in establishing a chapter of the far-right Flemish nationalist political partyVlaams Blokin the city of Brasschaat in the late 1980s along withLuc Sevenhans. In a source of retrospective debate, Janbon is said to have founded the branch on the advice of Vlaams Blok politicianGerolf Annemansafter he and Sevenhans both left the Volksunie. Janbon was reportedly active in branch, but remained behind the scenes to not jeopardize his professional career. However, leading VB politicianFilip Dewinterhas said he could not confirm whether Janbon actually became a member of the party while Annemans claims never to have seen Janbon at any local meetings for the VB in Brasschaat. In a 2020 interview withde ZontagJanbon denied ever being involved in the Vlaams Blok and claimed the accusation arose misleading due to misleadingWikipediaedits on his page and that he refused any collaboration with the party at the time.However, Sevenhans (who subsequently joined the N-VA) stuck to his story and has argued that Janbon was active within the VB at a local level.
In the mid-1990s, Jambon tried together withPeter De Rooverto influence the political character of the annualIJzerbedevaartinDiksmuide. He founded, among others with Lieven Van Gerven, then chairman of theDavidsfonds, theIJzerbedevaartForum. This forum died a quiet death in 1996 after the much more radical Werkgroep Radicalisering IJzerbedevaart, consisting ofVoorpost, VNJ, NSV and others, then started the current IJzerwake in Steenstrate andYpres.
In 1992, he co-authored the bookVlaanderen staat in EuropawithPeter de Rooverand became a member of the pro-independence think tankIn de Warande.
From 1992, he was for many years chairman of the Overlegcentrum van Vlaamse Verenigingen and also a national board member of the Vlaamse Volksbeweging, where he was elected treasurer in October 1998 and subsequently became political and administrative secretary. Since 1991 he has been a board member of the Algemeen Nederlands Zangverbond (General Dutch Singing Association).
For several years he was chairman of the Overlegcentrum van Vlaamse Verenigingen (think tank of Flemish associations) and a member of the leadership of the Vlaamse Volksbeweging (Flemish People's Movement), a separatist movement demanding Flemish independence, of which he was elected treasurer in October 1998 before becoming administrative and political secretary.
On 18 February 2006, Jambon resigned from theVlaamse Volksbewegingto work for theNew Flemish Alliance (N-VA)in order to prepare the partition of Belgium.
On 8 December 2005, Jambon founded a branch of theN-VAin theAntwerptown ofBrasschaat. At the municipal elections on 8 October 2006, Jambon received 565 preferential votes and from January 2007 he was alderman for finance and local economy. In mid-March 2007, he stood as a candidate inAntwerpon the list of N-VA andCD&Vfor the federal parliamentary elections, where he obtained 9,099 preferential votes.
On 28 June 2007, he became a member of parliament in theBelgian Chamber of Representatives, succeedingKris Peeterson the CD&V/N-VA cartel list. After the vote on the split of the electoral district ofBrussels-Halle-Vilvoordeon 7 November 2007 Jambon declared that the N-VA would not step into an orange-blue emergency cabinet if there was no prospect of state reform. In the elections of 13 June 2010 and of 25 May 2014, he was re-elected respectively as list leader and list duper of the Antwerp N-VA Chamber list. In the Chamber, he was N-VA group leader from 2008 to 2014.
Within the walls of the parliament, Jambon founded a "Diamond Club". Jan Jambon became chairman,Willem-Frederik SchiltzfromOpen VldandServais Verherstraetenfrom CD&V became vice-chairmen. Their intention was to represent the interests of the diamond sector at parliamentary level. It was remarkable that people's representatives so openly called for the interests of one business sector to be defended in an 'informal club'.
In the 2012 provincial council elections, Jambon was the last one on the list in the canton of Antwerp in the municipality of Brasschaat, where the N-VA obtained 39 percent of the votes.He then became mayor of the municipality on 1 January 2013. In the municipal elections of 2018, N-VA obtained an absolute majority in the municipal council of Brasschaat with 44 percent, allowing him to remain mayor.
In 2014, he was included in theMichel I government, where he becameDeputy Prime Ministerand Minister of Security and the Interior. Koen Verberck became serving mayor of Brasschaat, Jambon however remained titular mayor.
After theattacks in Brusselson 22 March 2016, Jambon and Minister of JusticeKoen Geensoffered their resignations, but this was refused by Prime MinisterCharles Michel.
With the governmental crisis surrounding theUN migration treaty, the Michel I government fell and Jambon's ministerial mandate came to an end on 9 December 2018. He then became a member of parliament again and resumed his role as mayor from 2019,which was the first time that he had been elected to the post of mayor.
In the 2019 federal elections, he was N-VA list leader in the constituency of Antwerp. He was re-elected to theChamberwith 187,826 preferential votes and was active there until early October 2019.On 12 August 2019, it was announced that he would lead the negotiations for the formation of a newFlemish Government. Jambon thereby took the place of his party leaderBart De Wever, who was a candidate for prime minister during the election campaign.TheJambon governmentwas finally formed in early October with Jambon as prime minister. He also became responsible forCulture,Foreign Policyand Development Cooperation.
After the22 March 2016 attacks, Jambon, as Minister of the Interior, claimed in an interview withDe Standaardthat "a significant part of theMuslimcommunity danced in response to the attacks."For this, he could not provide concrete indications of partying Muslims, but referred to information from theNational Security Councilshowing that the incidents that occurred were marginal and did not involve a significant part of the Muslim community.
In August 2020, Jambon came under scrutiny for allegedly failing to act as interior minister in 2018 following an incident inCharleroi airport. In that incident, a Slovakian man, Jozef Chovanec, was killed in a police cell after an intervention by the aviation police (part of thefederal police). Two and a half years after the incident, surveillance footage of the police action surfaced, causing a social outcry. In a meeting with the Parliamentary Committees on Justice and Home Affairs, Interior MinisterPieter De Cremindicated that Jambon was aware of the incident at the time, which he would have previously denied.Jambon claimed after De Crem's revelation that he had no recollection of it and that the file shows that neither he nor his cabinet had found out that the police had acted in a problematic manner.
Representing theFlemish People's Movement, Jambon spoke on 5 May 2001 at the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Flemish Eastern Front Community Sint-Maartensfonds v.z.w., a former organization ofFlemishformer volunteers of theFlemish Legionand theWaffen-SS. Jan Jambon was later criticized for making a speech.
This was brought out for the first time in 2007 byKarel De GuchtonVRT, in an election debate withYves Leterme, who was then working withCD&VandN-VA. The fact was brought out a second time on 23 October 2013 by the far-rightNew-Solidarist Alternative, but this time with photo material. The VRT programTerzakedevoted extra attention to the case on 24 October 2013 and the news was taken up by the main Flemish media, inDe Tijdand De Standaard Avond, the online evening edition ofDe Standaard, which devoted its front page to it on 25 October 2013. Then-Flemish ministerJohan Sauwenshad to resign in May 2001 after it was revealed that he had participated in the same meeting.
In 2014, three days after his appointment as federal minister, he gave an interview to the French-language newspapersLa Libre BelgiqueandLa Dernière Heure, where he sought to justify his presence at the anniversary of the Sint-Maartensfonds. During the interview he called thecollaborationa mistake, saying the following: "It's easy to talk in retrospect. The people who collaborated with the Germans had their reasons. I did not live in that period." This statement was criticized by several Belgian politicians,as well as the Social-Democrat Group Leader in the European Parliament,Gianni Pittella.
By press release to theBelgaagency, Jan Jambon apologized.