Political Career
In 1985 Frank Vandenbroucke was elected to the Belgian Chamber of People's Representatives and was re-elected in 1987, 1991 and 1995. In 1989 the 34 year old Vandenbroucke became chairman of the SP, a post he held until 1994, when he became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1994–1995). From 1995 to 1996 Vandenbroucke was the leader of the Parliamentary Group of the SP.
In 1995 Vandenbroucke had to resign as foreign minister and in 1996 he also resigned from parliament due to his involvement in the Agusta scandal. He acknowledged that he was confronted with 2 million francs which came as bribery money from the Italian helicopter builder Agusta. Refusing to have anything to do with the money, he advised to "have the money burned". Vandenbroucke was never prosecuted but took a voluntary sabbatical at Oxford (1996–1999).
After the 1999 Belgian general election Vandenbroucke returned to politics to become Minister of Social Affairs and Pensions (1999–2003). After the 2003 elections he became Minister for Employment and Pensions (2003–2004).
After the 2004 regional elections, Vandenbroucke left the federal government for the Flemish Government to become Vice-Minister-President of the Flemish Government and Flemish Minister for Work, Education and Training (2004–2009). The 2009 regional elections was a sudden and unexpected turning point in his career. Although Vandenbroucke gained a large number of preference votes in his home province of Flemish Brabant, the president of his party, Caroline Gennez, chose not to give him the opportunity to continue his work as Minister. Instead, he was succeeded by Pascal Smet for Education and by Philippe Muyters for Work. At that time, Frank Vandenbroucke remained member of the Flemish Parliament and accepted a teaching position at the University of Antwerp.
In 2010, Vandenbroucke participated in the general elections, running for the Belgian Senate. During the campaign, Frank Vandenbroucke outed his concerns about the social-institutional reforms that the pre-electorally dominating Flemish nationalist party New Flemish Alliance wanted to achieve. Although his party maintained its position with the outcome of the elections, Vandenbroucke gained a relatively large number of preference votes.
He has been member of the Flemish Parliament (2009) and of the Belgian Senate (2010), and was awarded by King Albert II of Belgium of the title of Minister of State(2009). In October 2011 he left all political posts to focus on academic research.
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