Van den Bossche, father of current Flemish energy minister Freya Van den Bossche, is currently chairman of the board of Brussels Airport Company, which manages the national airport. Last week it was reported that he had put in a demand for a salary of €689,000 per year before tax – €549,000 basic and a variable component of €140,000 in performance-related pay.

As the newspapers pointed out, that salary compared very favourably with those of federal ministers, at between €210,000 and €226,000. It was also richly higher than that of newly-appointed head of the IMF Christiane Lagarde, who pockets €394.000. Van den Bossche is a former Flemish minister for internal affairs, administrative affairs and education, as well as a former federal minister for internal affairs, health and government enterprises.

Finance minister Didier Reynders, not usually accustomed to commenting on private sector salaries, said the request was “shocking”. The Groen! party said it was “beyond shameful”. The problem appeared to be not that Van den Bossche, after more than two decades of public service, had found – as so many politicians do – a cosy pre-retirement sinecure, but that he was a socialist. His own former political colleagues in the sp.a were particularly shocked that he arranged for the salary to be paid to his management company LVDB, to avoid personal income tax (in a perfectly legal way). Prospective sp.a president Bruno Tobback said, “At a moment when we have to save billions of euros, we cannot permit the government to be taken in by schemes to avoid social and fiscal contributions.”

Later the same day, it emerged that reports, emanating from La Libre Belgique, had got it all wrong. Van den Bossche had not demanded the salary, he explained. It had been put on the table as an offer by BAC, in an effort to keep him on board – “Because I'm worth it,” he explained. In vain, as it turned out: Van den Bossche is to leave his post with BAC to become chairman of the executive committee of Optima, a financial planning company currently involved in an attempted takeover of Ethias Bank. He has been involved with Optima since 2003 as chairman of the board of directors, and the new post depends on the success of Optima's bid. The huge salary was all notional: it might as well have been dreamed up by Optima itself, such has been the publicity given to their new chairman.