Belgium Sets Record!

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/eur ... 36,00.html

Belgium has just broken the world record for taking the longest time to build a government. The tension between the country's French- and Dutch-speaking halves holds a lesson for the rest of Europe. As the European Union gets stronger, and national governments get weaker, ethnic groups are demanding more self-determination within a Europe of regions.

Brussels is home to two political arenas, a small one and a large one, which are located just a short walk apart. In the dark, winding corridors of the Belgian parliament, Dutch-speaking representatives from Flanders in northern Belgium are locked in a stalemate with their French-speaking counterparts from the southern region of Wallonia that could tear their kingdom apart. From here, it's just a few steps down the Rue de la Loi to number 175, the square glass-and-stone building that houses the Council of the European Union, the EU's main decision-making body.

It is here that the brave new world envisioned by the EU's leaders is being shaped. It is here that politicians are planning the continent's future, a system symbolized by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy.

For many years, Van Rompuy was employed on the other side of the trench that divides the national and international politicians working in Brussels. Before Van Rompuy was catapulted into the EU's top job in December 2009, and placed at the pinnacle of a political bloc comprising 500 million people, the slightly built Flanders native was the speaker of the Belgian parliament before becoming Belgian prime minister. That was over at the other end of the Rue de la Loi -- precisely where Belgium's latest political crisis has been playing out.

It is more than 270 days since parliamentary elections were held in Belgium, and a new government still hasn't been found. The exasperated Belgian people have employed all manner of tactics to try to cajole their elected representatives into reaching agreement. They've tried large-scale demonstrations, public stripteases, and even declared a French fry revolution in a tongue-in-cheek reference to their supposed favorite food.

To no avail. Instead of a new political leadership, Belgium now holds a new record: In no other country anywhere in the world -- not even Iraq -- have negotiations to form a government taken so long.

'It Can't Go on Like This'

The rivalry between Belgium's linguistic communities has long deteriorated into mutual recrimination. The Dutch-speaking Flemings blame the French-speaking Walloons in the south for the deadlock, claiming the Walloons simply want to live off the more prosperous north. The Walloons counter that Flemish nationalists stalled the talks with their demands for ever greater autonomy.

"Strength through unity" is the country's national motto. The phrase is engraved at the front of the parliament's plenary session room, where the Chamber of Representatives meets. Flemish members of parliament can look at the motto from their seats in the right half of the room, while the Walloon representatives sit on the left. Between them sits Kattrin Jadin. As the representative of her country's 74,000-strong German-speaking minority, she has been observing the stalemate between the two ethnic groups with growing concern. "It's a poker game in which nobody wants to lose face with their voters," she says. "But it can't go on like this."

The situation in Belgium does indeed look like the outcome of a brilliantly diabolical plan by militant anti-EU forces. Ironically, the EU's central goal of preserving cultural diversity under a common political roof now appears to be failing in one of its founding member states, the very country whose capital has for decades hosted the headquarters of the highly-paid champions of European ideals.

Sixty percent of Belgium's 11 million people are Flemish, the remaining 40 percent are mostly Walloon. For centuries the two ethnic groups have been neatly divided along an ancient cultural border: the former military road that separated the Roman Empire in the south from the barbarian hordes in the north.

Geopolitical Dynamite

After Belgium split off from the kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830, the inherited balance of power was later set in stone in the country's constitution. The new state's official language became French, and it was ruled by the francophone bourgeoisie.

It wasn't until 1966 that Flanders caught up economically with its southern neighbor. Shortly before, the political division of Belgium had been sealed through the establishment of the linguistic border between the "Germanic" Flemish peoples and the "Latin" Walloons. Since that time, five state reforms have underpinned the autonomy of the different regions and heightened tensions between the main ethnic groups. The election victory by Flemish nationalist Bart De Wever in June 2010 turned the wrangling over language laws and constituencies into geopolitical dynamite.

De Wever, whose N-VA party now has the most seats in parliament, has announced his intention to sit back and watch Belgium "evaporate." Walloon socialist Paul Magnette, who is still the incumbent energy minister, has already drawn up a list of possible scenarios. Were Belgium to break up, he cautions the Walloon south against merging with France. "If we had to join another country one day, then Germany must be our best hope," he says.

That question is unlikely to arise, says philosophy professor Philippe Van Parijs, one of the leading figures in the fight to prevent Belgium's disintegration. "But if it weren't for the question of Brussels, we'd have long gone the way of Czechoslovakia, which broke up peacefully," he admits. "Neither ethnic group could, or wants, to live without the capital." Van Parijs, a gaunt intellectual, regularly invites academics and politicians from both sides for talks in the library of his villa in Brussels.

'There Are No Belgians'

So how could this Gordian knot be cut? The solution is a far-reaching reform of the state, Van Parijs says. "Brussels, which is home to so many foreigners, must officially become trilingual: Flemish, Walloon and English," Van Parijs says. "In addition, Brussels, Flanders, Wallonia and the German-speaking area must become independent entities within Belgium, each with its own regional identity." After all, the Belgian capital -- which also happens to be the capital of Flanders -- has become a bone of contention between the Flemings and Walloons precisely because it is populated nowadays mainly by French speakers.

The political debate in Belgium completely ignores the fact that one in every six of Brussels' inhabitants are of Moroccan descent, and that some areas of the city, such as Molenbeek, are overwhelmingly inhabited by people of North African descent. But, in contrast to the rest of Europe, there is no debate about immigration in the country, since the Flemings and Walloons are already kept occupied by their mutual animosity.

At the heart of the problem lies the question of whether the existence of the Belgian state is merely the consequence of a little white lie from the heady days of the country's secessionist youth: the illusion that there can ever be such a thing as a Belgian nation. "Sire, il n'y a pas de Belges" ("Your Majesty, there are no Belgians"), Walloon socialist Jules Destrée famously told his king, Albert I, almost a hundred years ago.

In 2007, when a reporter asked Yves Leterme to sing his country's national anthem, the man who is technically still Belgium's prime minister broke into the Marseillaise -- the French anthem. After the last election, the men who were supposed to lead the coalition talks on behalf of the strongest parties in parliament, Flemish politician De Wever and his Walloon counterpart Elio Di Rupo, first had to ask for each other's cell phone numbers because they had previously had so little contact with one another.


Typical reactions by non-Belgians to such oddities range from a helpless shrug of the shoulder, to comments that a country that spawned the painter René Magritte must have a surrealist gene pool. A more likely explanation is that Belgium is experiencing a phenomenon that can be seen across an increasingly united Europe. The stronger the Brussels-based EU becomes, and the weaker its member states, the louder are the calls by small, long-disadvantaged ethnic groups for self-determination within a Europe of regions.

Scots, Catalans, Basques and Corsicans are eagerly following events in Belgium, partly out of curiosity over how the situation will unfold, and partly because the Flemings have managed to force their desire for a separate state onto the political agenda, even though their language was long derided as one spoken only by farmers and maids.

Part 2: 'Flush Belgium Away'

Roel De Leener, the head of the Language Action Committee (TAK), has been fighting for Flemish rights since his youth. In his high-school days in Brussels, he learnt what it meant to be Flemish in the capital of Flanders and yet still feel like a foreigner, unable to make himself understood. De Leener has since become a father and a business software developer. But in his spare time he paints the linguistic borders from past centuries onto the roads in and around Brussels to delineate future state boundaries.

De Leener and his ilk see themselves as provocateurs and Situationist-style pranksters. They tour their country under the TAK logo "Flush Belgium away," which depicts Belgium's black, yellow and red tricolor hanging over a toilet. "It's all non-violent," says De Leener, who has a penchant for speaking up loudly in town-hall meetings with Walloon mayors. "It's just a disturbance of the peace, no more. We're always released again within 12 hours."

De Leener is demanding an independent Flanders with Brussels as its capital. He says Bart De Wever's election victory brought widespread support for his secession plans. "Forty-five percent of Flemings now back independence, and 80 percent would agree to a confederation of what would in principle be two independent states," he says. "Until recently, we were considered right-wing extremists because of our policies, but opinions have now changed."

Pelted with Stones

However, TAK's deliberate tactic of playing with fire has become riskier for its activists. When TAK activists carrying the Flanders flag recently joined pro-Belgian demonstrators, they were pelted with stones and beer cans.

The TAK got off more lightly a year earlier with an action on the Lion Mound monument in Waterloo, some 15 kilometers (9 miles) south of Brussels on the linguistic border of the Walloon region. The site was the scene of the 1815 battle in which the Duke of Wellington defeated French Emperor Napoleon, thus paving the way for Europe's restoration. Flemish and Walloon soldiers mostly fought on opposite sides of the conflict.

De Leener and his friends say they still can't understand why they were arrested. After all, they had merely encircled the 28-ton bronze lion on the mound with their Flanders flags, and put up a banner declaring "Linguistic borders are state borders." "Do you know which direction the lion is looking?" asks the TAK activist. "To the south, of course; to France, where the danger is coming from."

Waterloo, where that landmark battle took place, has grown into a town which now finds itself at the center of Belgium's ethnic bickering. The Flemish side complains about the so-called "oil slick" along the linguistic border, by which it means the growing exodus of francophone citizens from Brussels to the surrounding countryside.

The six areas known as "linguistic border communities" enjoy a special place in the odder sections of Belgian legislation. These municipalities lie on Flemish territory, but the majority of their population is now francophone. Kafkaesque bureaucratic skirmishes break out time and again. For instance, government officials are tasked with ensuring local council meetings are held in Flemish and that no more than a quarter of library shelves are filled with French-language literature -- no matter what the local population's mother tongue is.

Mouth Taped Shut

Damien Thiéry, a mayor in one of the six linguistic border communities, has his mouth taped shut and is tied to a chair with packaging string. Thiéry is spending the afternoon with two similarly bound gentlemen in a Brussels factory building. Photographer Michel Loriaux wants it to look like a hostage-taking.

Loriaux's image is intended to symbolize everything that has gone wrong in Belgium. He's brought together three famous mayors from around Belgium for a photo shoot. Although Damien Thiéry and his colleagues were elected back in 2006, they have yet to take office. The reason? The three French-speaking officials sent Walloon voters in their Flanders constituencies election documents in French. However Belgian law stipulates that such materials must be sent out in Dutch first, a language most Walloons can't understand.

Because of their action, the Flanders government refused to appoint the elected mayors. "I'm not officially the head of my municipality, although I may still carry out my duties," jokes Thiéry once the photographer removes the duct tape from his mouth and unties him. He wants to use the "hostage" photo for an election campaign. "We're just waiting for the right moment," he says.

'What a Strange Creature'

If Belgium were reorganized or even split in two, the small town of Sint-Genesius-Rode is sure to land in the spotlight. It lies directly between Brussels and Waterloo and is thus a thorn in the side of Walloons who would like to connect the two residential areas.

The majority of people in Sint-Genesius-Rode are wealthy Francophones, many of whom prefer to live apart from their Flemish neighbors in hipped-roofed villas sheltered behind high walls. The remaining Flemings are clustered around the churches, where pubs can be found whose menus are only in Dutch.

But the town's most famous Fleming resident is known for his sobriety. On Sundays he cycles to church for mass, then heads straight back to his clinker brick house. He can sometimes be spied writing in the woods. "Haiku Herman," as he's been dubbed, is a fan of Japanese verse. One composition, in translation, reads as follows: "In the snowy night/ An owl cries through the stillness/ What a strange creature."

The abstemious poet is Herman Van Rompuy, who was Belgium's prime minister when the national crisis came to a head. But even he, a man known for his outstanding diplomatic skills, could not prevent the Flemings and Walloons from drifting further and further apart, because he was relieved of his office -- so that he could take the top job in the European Union.

Translated from the German by Jan Liebelt

I have... Some doubts as to whether Belgium's uniquely dysfunctional political clime is really all that applicable to the EU in general, but really I just wanted to make a post about the state of their tragicomic deadlock.

[weemadando]

Seriously, still?

I wonder how is the sex strike / shaving strike / everything else strike going?

[Sea Skimmer]

Its pretty bad when people who are still somewhat actively killing each other in Iraq can reach agreement faster. This massive delay counts against the time the government, when its ever formed, can stay in power right?

[Zed]

It does, but the aim of the negotiations isn't actually a stable government, but state reform.

[CJvR]

Intresting, seems Belgium is not to far from undergoing fission.

While Iraq managed to hammer together a deal that might have originated from the fact that the old elite, the Sunni minority, was booted out of power by the US and was trying to get back in - while in Belgium the Francos are trying to avoid getting kicked out.

[wautd]

We just broke the record? I tought we already did that 2 months ago.

[wautd]

I'll be surprised if we get a government soon. It's one thing to find a majority for both sides of the country, it's another thing try try to mix these 2 separate democracies with opposing viewpoints about pretty much anything.

while in Belgium the Francos are trying to avoid getting kicked out.

Well that has been a selffulfilling prophecy of which they can only blame themselves for (not that they realize it though). For years, the majority (flemish part) wants change while the minority (walloon part) is happy with the status quo. Every request by the flemish part resulted in an automatically "non" (we even have a politician nicknamed Madame Non) or had to be bought with unreasonable counterdemands that resulted in years of political immobilism that only helped to polarize both landparts apart. On the other hand, you had the walloon part dictating policies the flemish majority not only didn't liked, but also ended up paying for it. The painting of pro-flemish as lukewarm neonazi's by some of the more hardcore francophones didn't helped as well.
So it's not completely unsurprising that a small, pro-flemish party suddenly boomed since the last elections (and according the the latest polls, still has grown with a couple of %).

To give you an example that sadly is true, it took months, if not years to get an agreement about the new color of the car number plates. It was almost decided to have black numbers on a yellow background, since this had the best contrast on cameras, but according to Madame Non, these colors were too much pro-flemish. In the end it was decided to change from red letters/white background to bordeaux-red letters/white background (worst contrast but hey, it's 20€ a piece well spent)

[White Haven]

Europe's obsession with ancient history just makes me...puzzled sometimes. I suppose it would be too much to ask for people to realize that Napoleon stopped being a relevant topic of political discourse a long, long time ago? I know that's not all that's going on in Belgium, but the whole of it just seems so...relentlessly petty.

[Zed]

The TAK are radicals, and aren't representative of the Flemish mainstream. Waterloo isn't seriously invoked in mainstream Flemish nationalist discourse, and nobody believes that there's any danger coming from France of all places. At best, Waterloo is a symbol against francophone incursion and oppression - no more than that. The primary Flemish complaints against the Walloons are as follows:
(1) Flemish and Wallonian politics differ significantly - the Flemish are mostly right-wing, while the Walloons are mostly left-wing. It is very difficult to reconcile these tendencies, seeing as a federal government must have a majority both on the Flemish side and on the Walloon side in order to have any democratic legitimacy.
(2) Wallonian politics are rather into 'service' to their constituencies. Considering that the primary party in Wallonia is the Parti Socialiste, this means (in practice) that they primarily serve government workers and the unemployed. A few years ago, the Parti Socialist shot down a proposal to raise the minimum wage because this would create too large a discrepancy between the minimum wage and unemployment benefits. As you can imagine, a party that has the perpetually unemployed as an important voting block is unlikely to want to crack down on unemployment.
(3) Large fractions of the Parti Socialiste are corrupt, and this is commonly recognized. See: the murder of André Cools, the Agusta affair, the scandals in Charleroi, etc.
(4) Walloons that live in Flanders are able to vote for the Brussels elections due to special arrangements, while Flemish that live in Wallonia are not.
(5) There is mass immigration from Brussels and Wallonia to specific areas in Flanders, where land is cheaper. Flemish is suppressed to a large extent there: one scarcely sees any Dutch on the street anymore. In addition, the officials elected by these immigrating Walloons defy the law by holding official meetings in French rather than Dutch, sending out election notifications in French rather than Dutch, et cetera. All of these make further immigration from Wallonia to Flanders even more appealing, while these immigrants continue to demand special rights.

[fgalkin]

Europe's obsession with ancient history just makes me...puzzled sometimes. I suppose it would be too much to ask for people to realize that Napoleon stopped being a relevant topic of political discourse a long, long time ago? I know that's not all that's going on in Belgium, but the whole of it just seems so...relentlessly petty.

The Founding Fathers stopped being a relevant topic of political discourse a long time ago, too. So did Lincoln, for that matter. Does that stop anyone in the US from constantly mentioning them to justify whatever they want to do now?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[White Haven]

Touche, up to a point, although I would argue that referencing your own early policymakers is a bit of a different story than referencing someone else's. You hear Lincoln or Washington mentioned in US politics from time to time. You generally don't hear them mentioning, say, George III.

[Prannon]

When the American cultures are 1000 years old, trust me, they will also be obsessed with the history of those eccentric Republics and Dominions of way back when.

[fgalkin]

Uh...ever heard of the Tea Party? What do you think they're referring to?

Also, Napoleon is relevant because he's had a part in the nation's creation, albeit indirectly. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands was created during the Congress of Vienna, remember? There is also the history of who fought on which side (you know, kinda like a certain segment of the population that has a strange fondness for the Stars and Bars) and the precedent of seceding from a larger state during the Belgian Revolution. So yeah, I'd say Napoleon is relevant to Belgium like England is relevant to the US.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[White Haven]

Again, touche. This is all bringing me back to why I found American History dull as shit back in public school. It's like watching a soap opera, only occasionally people die.

[Skgoa]

So basicly you just don't care about history at all and expect that to be the norm?

[White Haven]

Given that I didn't say that at all, no, not really. If misrepresenting people makes you feel warm at night though, go right ahead.

[bobalot]

Uh...ever heard of the Tea Party? What do you think they're referring to?

Also, Napoleon is relevant because he's had a part in the nation's creation, albeit indirectly. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands was created during the Congress of Vienna, remember? There is also the history of who fought on which side (you know, kinda like a certain segment of the population that has a strange fondness for the Stars and Bars) and the precedent of seceding from a larger state during the Belgian Revolution. So yeah, I'd say Napoleon is relevant to Belgium like England is relevant to the US.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Not to mention mention the Napoleonic Code, which still has influence today.

[Bounty]

It's got to be getting more and more surreal for Leterme to go to work as PM every day. Ironically he's doing a better job and getting more credit than when he was legitimately the PM.

As for "fission"... nah. The country's running just fine through this hiccup. It had to happen sooner or later, and the N-VA winning the elections simply made it "sooner". There have been crises before and the world didn't end.

[Ekiqa]

They really just need to eliminate the special considerations given for language/culture/regional reasons. A 60/40 split is close enough that enough to prevent a tyranny of the majority, though given the historical way the Walloons have acted, it would be just deserts if they were kicked to the dirt.

[Stargate Nerd]

I don't understand this at all. Belgium is a democratic country, so why can't the two parts not simply separate and form two distinct countries? Not like it matters since the two successor states would probably still be part of a united Europe.

[Zed]

1) Until a few years ago, there was no democratic majority for separation in Flanders. It is unclear whether there is a democratic majority for separation in Flanders now, either, since many voters for separatist parties approve of those parties' short term goals (i.e. state reform), but not necessarily of those parties' long term goals (i.e. independence)
2) There is no democratic majority for separation in Brussels.
3) There is no democratic majority for separation in Wallonia.
4) There is no democratic majority for separation amongst the German community.
5) Brussels is not on the territory of Flanders, but is the capital of Flanders. The Flemish parliament is located in Brussels. Most Flemish governmental departments are located in Brussels.

There's various other reasons, but those are the major ones.

[wautd]

I don't understand this at all. Belgium is a democratic country, so why can't the two parts not simply separate and form two distinct countries? Not like it matters since the two successor states would probably still be part of a united Europe.

Because Wallonia probably can't economically survive on its own. They need the money transfers coming from Flanders they pay their social systems (high health care costs, highest unemployment rates,...). Again, it's in the Party Socialist best intrest to keep the status quo. The government in running affairs is doing just fine, and they can make a left-leaning long term budget while the right-leaning N-VA still can't give any input since no new government is formed yet. Furthermore, the PS can happy go back to tell their electorate they made sure they defended their money, while looking in surprise when during the next elections, the N-VA grows even larger.

I wouldn't mind the decades of money transfers going from Flanders to Wallonia part wasn't it for the habit they kept biting the hand that feeds them. Protection of the minority is a great thing in a democracy, untill the minority starts abusing the system.

5) Brussels is not on the territory of Flanders, but is the capital of Flanders. The Flemish parliament is located in Brussels. Most Flemish governmental departments are located in Brussels.

Geographically, it kinda is. The demands of some walloon parties turn flemish cities into walloon ones so they can have a corridor to Brussels is one of those typical unreasonable demands.

[Zed]

It's an enclave - it's not on Flemish territory.

[wautd]

The Belgian crisis in detail, written in 2007 right befofe the period with the walloon filibusters and alarm bell procedures, followed by 3 years of political immobilism (not that is was running smoothly in the years before) and early elections in 2010.

[Zed]

I have great doubts concerning the parallel the author of the original piece there sees with the EU, though. Flemish nationalism is explicitly pro-European, so it's difficult to argue that the rise of Flemish nationalism is a signal that European integration won't work.