Face of Flanders: Danny Van Assche

“It's a little bit embarrassing, because my culinary skills in the kitchen are rather limited,” said Danny Van Assche on the announcement of the award. But giving the title to the director of the industry organisation Horeca Vlaanderen can be seen as a sign of the growing regulation of the food and drinks service industry.

Van Assche has been at the head of Horeca Vlaanderen since 2010, after spending four years as an adviser on social affairs at Unizo, the organisation that represents the self-employed in Flanders. Prior to that, he was an adviser to economy and small business minister Eric Van Rompuy in the Flemish government.

He graduated with a doctorate in political and social sciences from Antwerp University in 1993 before going on to Leuven to study for a second degree in economics. He sat in the Flemish Parliament for two years before being head-hunted by Van Rompuy.

Along the career path he has followed, Van Assche has built up a formidable address book. Affiliated to CD&V since the Van Rompuy days, he also sat as a local councillor and alderman in Wilrijk, near Antwerp, accumulating a host of posts, including chairing cultural associations, sitting on numerous boards and even helping run a brass band and a carnival parade. At one point, before giving up politics to represent the restaurant business, he declared 23 such positions, 10 of them remunerated.

That sort of influence is important to the industry, which is now facing the biggest shake-up since the smoking ban. The federal government is introducing the new smart cash register, which will make undeclared income and paying staff in cash under the table impossible.

Black work is rife in the bars and restaurants in Flanders, and many owners fear they will have to close. Van Assche can no longer prevent that from happening, but his job now will be to extract whatever compensatory measures he can from the government.

Photo courtesy Horeca Vlaanderen