A secure democratic Net is a fundamental right

We have a series of contacts and people contacting us to get to know us better. One of them that impressed me was Peter C Delbeke. He died because of a heart attack, 47 years of age. He was a profesor and consultant in Strategic economic intelligence. He wanted to meet one of us because he was impressed with the work we were doing. The meeting stayed in my mind and was important to me because if such an intelligent and important man (even if he was very discrete) found our work important, we could be doing some things right.

It saddened me that he left so early in life while there was so much he still wanted to do and left his wife behind he seemed to love so much.

Some things that go through my mind when thinking of him and the talks we had was that he thought that the Belgian government wasn't prepared for the Chinese economic espionage or the cyberattack danger and that Georgia was always on his mind the last weeks of his life.

It also surprised him that some enterprises didn't prepare themselves for economic intelligence or defenses. Something that Fortis showed and paid for darely.

And just as some of us, he always had problems during his life because he said his mind and told in clear terms what ought to be done. Being popular was not his objective, being credible and keeping his credibility even more. At the end it made him an expensive consultant working for big corporations around the world. Because of his credibility.

Peter, if I think of one last thing, to close this, than it is that you have showed us that the work we do is important because otherwise someone important like you wouldn't be spending expensive time with some of us. For this I will always be thankful. Rest in peace over there.