Later political career Between 2000 and 2007, he sat as
Burgemeester (mayor) of
Vilvoorde. In 2003, he was awarded the
Vlerick Award. Between 2006 and 2007, Dehaene served as member of the
Amato Group, a group of high-level European politicians unofficially working on rewriting the
Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe into what became known as the
Treaty of Lisbon following its rejection by
French and
Dutch voters. After the
Belgian elections of 2007, Dehaene was appointed as mediator in the process to form a new government. He was also called in to assist in the negotiations around the
Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde partition. In 2011, he was involved in an investigation of
Manchester City F.C. over sponsorship irregularities.
Dexia Dehaene, who had previously been director of
InBev, became chairman of
Dexia Bank, a Belgian-French bank, in October 2008. With the bank in difficulty owing to the
2008 financial crisis, he was asked to lead the company through the difficult period which he described as "mission impossible". Owing to his extensive political background, it was thought that he could cope with the negative public perception Dexia had acquired through the
2008 financial crisis. His political connections helped Dexia's
bad bank to secure funding guarantees of up to €90 billion, provided primarily by the Belgian government. In 2012, Dexia Belgium became
Belfius. ==Death==