Zakia Khattabi

Zakia Khattabi (Arabic: زكية الخطابي; born 15 January 1976) is a Belgian-Moroccan politician who is currently the co-president of the Ecolo party.

Zakia Khattabi
Khattabi in 2015
Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development
Assumed office
1 October 2020
MonarchPhilippe
Prime MinisterAlexander De Croo
Preceded byMarie-Christine Marghem
Leader of Ecolo
Assumed office
23 March 2015
Preceded byOlivier Deleuze & Emily Hoyos
Member of the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region
In office
7 June 2009 – 25 May 2014
Member of the Parliament of the French Community of Belgium
In office
24 September 2009 – 2014
Member of the Chamber of Representatives
In office
25 May 2014 – 25 May 2015
Personal details
Born (1976-01-15) 15 January 1976
Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Belgium
NationalityBelgian and Moroccan
Political partyEcolo
ResidenceBrussels

Khattabi was born in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode in Brussels to Moroccan parents.[1] She studied at Université libre de Bruxelles. She believes in political ecology and is a feminist activist which led to her joining the Ecolo party. As of 1 October 2020, she serves as Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development in the De Croo Government led by Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.

Political career and views

She became a member of the Brussels Parliament in 2009 as the local councillor for Ixelles, and then also sat in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. She later became president of the Ecolo group at the Belgian Senate.[2] Khattabi was elected, along with Patrick Dupriez, as co-leader of Ecolo during a party conference in Charleroi in 2015.[3] Dupriez was replaced in 2018 by Jean-Marc Nollet.

In a 2018 interview with Le Soir, Khattabi called for a "new model" for Brussels without separate Flemish and Francophone communities.[4] That same year following the killing of 14 women from macho violence in Belgium that year, Khattabi called for the recognition of femicide.[5]

Under Khattabi's co-presidency, Ecolo made large gains in Brussels in the local elections of 2018 to become the second largest party there.[6] In the 2019 federal election Ecolo doubled its share of the vote, and gained its biggest number of seats yet,[7] which Khattabi attributed to a rising "green wave" in Europe.

In January 2020, Khattabi failed to gain sufficient support from Belgian senators to become one of the judges at the Belgian Constitutional Court. Her candidature received the votes of only 38 of 60 senators, whereas a supermajority of two-thirds was required. The vote should have been held in November 2019 originally, but was postponed after a campaign by right-wing party N-VA and far-right Vlaams Belang against Khattabi's candidature. [8]

Honours

References
  1. Libre.be, La (9 May 2009). "Au-delà des clivages". lalibre.be.
  2. "Zakia Khattabi". Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  3. "Zakia Khattabi et Patrick Dupriez sont les nouveaux co-présidents d'Ecolo !". 22 March 2015.
  4. "Zakia Khattabi (Ecolo) veut réécrire Bruxelles en partant d'une page blanche". Le Soir Plus. 14 January 2018. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  5. "Déjà 14 femmes mortes de violences machistes en 2018: Zakia Khattabi veut faire reconnaître le "féminicide"". RTBF Info. 28 March 2018.
  6. McNally, Paul (14 October 2018). "Local elections: Ecolo-Groen achieve big gains in Brussels region". The Bulletin. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  7. "Ecolo grote winnaar in Wallonië: geen tsunami, wel flinke golf". Het Laatste Nieuws (in Dutch). 27 May 2019. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
  8. "Former Co-Leader of Francophone Greens' candidature for Constitutional Court job gets insufficient support from Senators". VRT NWS. 17 January 2020. Retrieved 19 January 2020.
  9. "Zakia Khattabi". senate.be. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
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