Bertrand Waucquez

Bertrand Waucquez graduated from the University of Louvain-la-Neuve as a civil engineer in mechanical engineering. Subsequently he completed his military service in Zeebrugge after which he left for Japan and obtained a Master’s degree of Engineering from the University of Tokyo. During his stay in Japan, he was also professionally active performing an assignment for several years.

Bertrand then moved back to Belgium and worked for 15 years at a port company in Antwerp. He was mainly active in the field of logistics and IT. Bertrand spent the next 10 years of his professional career as an independent consultant with numerous assignments in the energy sector. From 2016 to 2018, he was an energy consultant for the Flemish Construction Confederation with a focus on energy transition, geothermal applications and indoor air quality.

In the year 2000, Bertrand settled in Kraainem and in 2012, together with four other Kraainem residents, he founded a new citizens' movement characterised by its multilingualism, independence and rigorous and transparent management. In the October 2018 elections, the movement obtained 32.5% of the votes, resulting in 11 elected representatives (8 municipal councillors and 3 public welfare councillors) and thus became the main "party" of the municipal council. A majority coalition is then formed with the only other multilingual list of Kraainem.

Since 2019, Bertrand has been Mayor of Kraainem. He is also Vice-President of the BUTV (Belgian Union Against Aircraft Nuisance) and Board Member (former CEO) of B Plus VZW for the promotion of an efficient, federal and solidarity-based Belgium.

He speaks several European languages as well as Japanese and Chinese and has basic knowledge of Ukrainian.