September 11, 2007
Belgian deadlock
It’s three months today since Belgium held a general election, and still there’s no new government.
To recap: after the poll, Yves Leterme, a Flemish Christian Democrat, was poised to be the next premier.
But talks on forming a coalition of French, and Dutch, speaking-parties are deadlocked. The weird thing is how easily you can forget this.
The sticking point in the talks is a demand for more self-rule for the wealthy (Dutch-language) Flanders region. Still, long negotiations to build coalitions are not unusual here. So everything sort of ticks along in the meantime.
The existing prime minister remains in a caretaker role, trains run, dustbins are emptied…and so it goes. That said, what’ll happen when it gets to the crunch on agreeing new legislation/budgets?
As coalition-building efforts plod along, there are just questions, including the perennial one about whether the three-language, multi-regional country will split.
An eight-page supplement in La Libre Belgique considers the “who, what and why” of the “crisis".
Le Soir, another French language daily, has a detailed look at lessons to be learnt from the split of the former Czechoslovakia. (To keep track of the Dutch-languauge media, click here.)
And all the while, everything just ticks along…
Belgium is very important for Europe,Premier Leterme can do great things ,a) simplify links between cities and between Brussels and the beaches, let the strees-out EU-city workers get to the ocean quick and easy,b) in new processors apps specially with AMD which is under attack from Intel,Toshiba,Via,etc.,new working areas,new software and design in front of the water,c) new foods and living concepts ,Belgium has tremendous potential, needs creative work ,d)and a christian Premier is something that many neocons in the Continent don’t like…let’s face it, our christian culture is going down, our leaders are sclerotic and new ideas are distrusted,i can understand the plans of neocons to split Belgium and conquer,its an old concept that these neocons have done many times in the History of Europe,divide to war to profit from it ….nothing new, just like my own christian community never learning from it ….
Posted by: blogger | September 21st, 2007 at 10:46 pm | Report this comment