Since yesterday evening, Belgium again does not have a government any more. The prime minister once again did not succeed negotiating a new state reform against the deadline of the 15th of July which he had imposed. Because of the state reform discussion, the country has not had a government worthy that name since the last federal elections one year ago: the number of real decisions taken, can be counted on one hand and several of them were even very controversial (for example, the Belgian army is going to take a more active role in the war in Afghanistan).

Currently, I’m ashamed to live in this country and I don’t feel like being Flemish, nor Belgian. Lots of political parties and a big part of the public (of both language groups: Dutch speaking Flanders and French speaking Wallonia) have radicalised and will radicalise even more in the future if things go on like this. Any rational discussion or compromise has become extremely difficult, even almost impossible, under pressure of extremists on both sides, even in traditional centre parties. It’s simply unacceptable that in times of economical slow-down, population aging, global warming, a lack of money on the Belgian federal state level and other problems, that federal state is blocked completely for such a long time…

It is already 156 days ago we had federal elections here in Belgium, but there is still no new government yet. The political crisis in this country has never been so serious: Dutch (Flemish) and French speaking (Walloon) politicians cannot find a compromise at all. A lot of trouble is caused by the electoral district called “Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde” (B-H-V). It consists of the bilingual Brussels region and some Flemish cities (of which Halle and Vilvoorde are the most well-known). The result is that people living in this part of the Flemish region (i.e. the Dutch speaking region in the north of the country), can vote for French speaking politicians in Brussels. A few years ago, the constitutional court decided that this was against the constitution, as Belgium is a federal country where political parties create separate lists for each province. B-H-V does not follow this rule, as it consists of the separate Brussels region and some cities of the Flemish province Vlaams-Brabant.

Flemish politicians have unilaterally voted in a commission in the parliament to split the district. All French speaking politicians refused to vote in protest of the unilateral vote by the Flemish majority. Because of all kinds of procedures, Walloons can still block the split now for almost two years.

Walloons now demand excuses from the Flemish politicians and they want guarantees that such kinds of votes will never happen anymore. The Flemish on the other hand still demand more autonomy for the regions, which the Walloons refuse. Until this matter is solved, both parties refuse to continue the negotiations to form a new government.

As is typical in this kind of conflict, the media have a very big influence. For example tonight the headline in all Flemish media was that the new president of the constitutional court said that any subsequent federal elections will be invalid if no solution for the B-H-V district is found. Of all the French on line media I checked (RTBF, RTL, Le Soir, La Libre Belgique) only the RTBF (French speaking official television) mentioned this.

In Wallonia and Brussels, lots of people are hanging out Belgian flags because they fear this will be the end of Belgium. In Flanders, there are not flags at all. Most Flemish people don’t really care too much whether Belgium will continue to exist or whether Flanders will become independent. However, polls indicate that most of the Flemish people are still in favour of more autonomy for the regions in the federal country. And probably most people in this country are getting tired of this crisis which won’t end. Let’s hope for a solution soon, whatever that solution may be: everything is better than the current standstill.

PS: Today I read in the newspaper something of our neighbouring country The Netherlands which made me laugh: they are thinking of creating a tulip shaped island before the coast, and apparently lots of politicians are in favour. Politicians are a very strange race, whatever country they are from :-)

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9767681