The main question Dehaene was able to clarify, members said, was whether crucial matters such as the bank’s portfolio of interest swaps had been communicated to Municipal Holding (GH), which is now in liquidation as a result of its exposure to Dexia debt. Two weeks ago, the chairman of GH, Francis Vermeiren, told the Flemish parliament that GH had no knowledge of some high-risk paper auditors had signalled to the Dexia board. Dehaene contradicted that claim and stressed that directors had been given all important information from the auditors’ report.

As Flanders Today went to press, the committee was due to meet twice, on Monday and Wednesday, to hear from four financial experts: professor Paul De Grauwe, formerly of the Catholic University of Leuven and now at the London School of Economics; Eric De Keuleneer and Roland Gillet of the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and independent economist Geert Noels of the think tank Econopolis.

The committee said that later it would also like to interview former Dexia chairmen François Narmon and Pierre Richard, as well as former CEOs Axel Miller and Claude Piret. No dates for those hearings have yet been set.