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Belgium - still waiting for a government
The political crisis, which has been gripping Belgium for months, is entering a new phase now that the Christian Democrat Yves Leterme has been charged with forming a new government. This will be his second attempt at trying to reach a compromise between the diametrically opposed interests of the Flemish and Walloon parties.
Map of Belgium showing the language divisions, with German spoken by a very small minority living along the border with Germany. French is the dominant language in the capital, Brussels, despite the city's location inside Dutch-speaking Flanders. |
In a nutshell, the crisis was sparked by a difference of opinion on the future structure of the Belgian state. The Flemish want autonomy in as many policy fields as possible, while the French-speaking Walloons want to retain a strong federal state that looks after the interests of all Belgians. This is primarily dictated by the fear that the Walloon provinces would never be able to pay for its own needs. The far wealthier Flemish have no such concern.
Reform
The crisis began during the election campaigns this spring. Nearly all Flemish parties promised the voters a far-reaching reform of the state, to ensure Flanders would be able to make its own decisions in an even larger number of policy fields.
However, the Flemish parties failed to mention that such drastic reforms would require the support of the French-language parties. Belgium's constitution makes it impossible for the six million Flemings to impose their will unilaterally on their four million French-speaking compatriots.
The Flemish voters en masse cast their ballots for Yves Leterme; the leader of the Flemish Christian Democratic party CD&V. Leterme won no less than 800,000 preferential votes. It was a signal from the voters who wanted to reward the leader of a party that had spent eight years in opposition.
No inclination
It was clear that Mr Leterme was the man to lead a new government coalition with the country's conservative parties. But it soon became clear that the French-language parties had no inclination to cooperate on state reform.
The bad atmosphere between Mr Leterme and the French-language parties took a turn for the worse due to a series of unfortunate media incidents. In July, when a French journalist asked him to sing the Belgian national anthem, he spontaneously burst into the Marseillaise. The unfortunate mistake was extensively discussed in the French-language media, and interpreted as a sign that Mr Leterme did not care about the future of the country, but only about Flemish interests.
No future
Meanwhile, the Belgian electorate began to get seriously worried about the country's future. Reputable foreign newspapers began to write about the impending break-up of the country and concluded that the federal Belgian state no longer had a future. Large numbers of residents in the capital Brussels hung the national flag from their windows as a sign that they wanted to preserve the union.
The events of the past few days have again highlighted the yawning gap between the positions of the two sides. French-language parties have been unanimously demanding that several Flemish municipalities be added to the bi-lingual city of Brussels if the Flemings persist with their demand that the Brussels electoral district be split in two.
Such a split would mean that French-speaking residents of the Flemish municipalities surrounding the capital would no longer be able to cast their vote for a French-speaking politician. The division would also mean they would lose the right to use their own language to conduct a law suit. However, the Flemish parties refuse to consider ceding even a square inch of territory, which makes the impasse complete.
No alternative
The only reason that King Albert of the Belgians has now appointed someone to form a new government any way is that the politicians involved can't see any alternative. In a certain sense, this decision fits with the country's surrealist tradition as personified by the famous Belgian painter René Magritte: negotiations will be conducted, even though everyone knows full well that there is no chance of an agreement.
Not until the Flemish parties make it clear to their voters that the promised state reform is not going to materialise any time soon will there be any chance of agreement. That, however, could take several weeks.
* RNW translation (gsh/tpf)
Tags:
Belgium,
Flanders,
Walloons
Lotte,
10-10-2007
- Belgium
What always amazes me is that Dutch people, like the rest of the world, seem unable to understand the situation in Belgium, even though they speak the same language as the Flemish people. The rest of the world unfortunately only reads and understands the French media, which shows only a one-sided view on Belgium's situation. This article makes the Flemish population sound like imperialist hound dogs that 'refuse to consider ceding even a square inch of territory'.
What no one seems to realise is that the problems today are actually caused by the 40-year-long refusal by the French people living in Flemish cities (the country's linguistic border was created in 1963 and was necessary to avoid further linguistic cleansing by the French of the Flemish language). In 1830, Brussels for instance was a predominantly Flemish speaking city (90%!), but the French authorities at the time deliberately tried to extinguish Flemish by only providing French basic schools. Most Flemish (impoverished) children didn't understand a word of it and never got anywhere in society. For about 130 years, if you wanted to make it in Belgian society, you had to speak French.
And I don't have to tell you the result: Brussels, which is indeed 'officially' a bilingual city, is in fact just French speaking. The fact that, by law, authorities in Brussels have to also be able to address its citizens in Flemish, is there to protect the now 10% of Flemish people still living there. But unfortunately, not many French-speaking citizens show much respect to the Flemish (=Dutch) language. How would you feel if you had to speak French in your own capital because Brussels' authorities (but also shopkeepers, bakeries, proprietors, etc) can't be bothered to speak or understand your language? Even worse, they react sometimes rudely when they discover you're actually Flemish. As a result, Flemish people will always adapt and speak French (or any other language for that matter). Unwillingness to move an inch? I don't think so.
In addition, these so-called 'rights' the author is talking about of the French population in the surrounding municipalities of Brussels, have existed since 1963 and were actually meant to be temporary measures to give the French and Flemish people - who suddenly ended up being a part of either Wallonia or Flanders - the chance to gradually adapt to the new situation and to be able to learn the other language. We haven't heard anything for 40 years about these Flemish people who ended up being a part of Wallonia. They decided to integrate and learn and speak the French language.
For the French speaking population that ended up in Flanders, these temporary measures are still being exploited to the extreme. What's more: they have not made one single attempt to learn the Dutch language and to integrate in Flanders. And now they even dream about extending the Brussels borders, which were also set by law a few decades ago, and to 'eat' into Flemish territory. And we know by now that a bilingual territory is the same as a French-speaking one.
This is why the Flemish do not want to give in to any territorial extension of Brussels, because history has sadly proven that the French speaking Belgians (and especially FDF, a Flemish-hating party) are imperialistic.
This is also why the Flemish population demand that the Brussels electoral district - which unfortunately is not the same as the Brussels territorial district and extends into Flanders - should be split according to the law. A court has decided upon the illegality of this situation: French-speaking people who live in Flanders can vote on Brussels politicians. This makes the FDF, for instance, really stir hatred against the Flemish language in the municipalities around Brussels (which are part of Flanders). Unfortunately, at the moment, the whole French population, including its biased media, seem to go along with this hysteria. No one in Flanders ever really thought about being independent, it simply wasn't an issue.
The article gave the impression that the problems in Belgium are due to Flemish stubbornness and egoism, when in fact it is, and unfortunately always has been, the French Belgians who have been refusing to implement simple linguistic laws. Even worse, they systematically try to ignore these laws and question them again.
What's really frustrating, though, is that the international press and public never really gets the whole picture.
