Sarah Schlitz

Sarah Schlitz (born 7 December 1986) is a Belgian politician from Ecolo. She was Belgian Secretary of State for Gender Equality, Equal Opportunity and Diversity in the government of the prime minister Alexander De Croo.

Early life and education Sarah Schlitz was born in Liège to a family with a political background and is the granddaughter of the former mayor of Liège. She studied at the University of Liège and graduated with a Master of Science in Political Science, and supplementary masters in Urban Studies and Spatial Development.

Political career In Liège, Sarah Schlitz has been involved in grassroots community organizing focusing on ecological, social and feminist politics.

In October 2012, she was elected to the city council of Liège as part of Ecolo. In October 2018, she was reelected as a member of the citizen's movement Vert Ardent.

In the 2014 general election, she came second with 2.935 votes as a substitute candidate for Ecolo in the Liege constituency. In October 2018, she succeeded , who resigned from parliament.

In the 2019 parliamentary election, she was elected to the Belgian Federal Parliament with 17.728 votes as Ecolo's chief candidate for the constituency of Liège.

From 1 October 2020 to 26 April 2023, she was the State Secretary for Gender Equality, Equal Opportunities and Diversity in the De Croo government.

She resigned from her position as state secretary due to use of personal logo in governmental projects. In late 2021, Schlitz used her personal logo in official communication, which is not permitted, and she was questioned harshly about it in parliament.

In April 2023 she became the centre of a scandal when it was made known that her personal logo had been added to projects that had been funded by her as state secretary, which is illegal in Belgium. She claimed that she had not asked for this and that the projects had acted on their own initiative, but leaked emails later showed that she had explicitly requested this herself, after which the opposition called for her resignation. To make matters worse, her cabinet employee shared a message on social media that linked nationalist party N-VA to Nazism.

Two days later, she resigned to prevent a debate in the chamber of representatives. She was replaced by Marie-Colline Leroy.