November 2, 2007
Belgium: Five months and still no government
And on it goes…
Belgium waits and waits for a new federal government, almost five months after the election. Next week, it is expected to break its record for the longest-ever talks to form a coalition.
This leaves everyone to muse about the linguistically-divided country’s future, and in particular, the claim that the Flemings of the wealthy (Dutch-speaking) north and the Walloons of the poorer, francophone south, barely know each other.
I suppose when your country has been (briefly) put up for sale on eBay, and the prime minister designate appears unwilling to sing the national anthem, you’re justified in questioning things? But is the doom and gloom making everyone become a bit too tough on themselves?
Two big newspapers - Le Soir (francophone) and de Standaard (Flemish) - ran a "true or false" quiz on how well their readers knew the other side.
Here are some of the questions: (no info on how people responded, unfortunately)
To the Francophones:
- The mayor of Antwerp is known for his eccentric ties
- De Standaard’s cartoonist is called Zak
To the Flemings:
- The Marsupilamis of Charleroi are top of the basketball championship
- Marie Arena is the children’s minister of the French language community
Would people in any other federal country be able to answer such questions?
I know Belgium is relatively small, but still, do people from opposite ends of other nations know about sports leagues/regional politicians/newspaper cartoonists elsewhere? Maybe the Belgians are better acquainted with each other than they realise.
Easy to answer that last question. Have two Swiss newspaperes ask the same type of questions to readers in French and German speaking Swiss. One forgets the two countrdies are federal trilinggual countries
Posted by: john somer | November 3rd, 2007 at 9:38 am | Report this commentWell Belgium has no formed government which does differ than the one in the United States. Ours is owned 100% by Corporate Lobbyists. I’m not sure that Belgium’s is not actually better.
Posted by: Craig | November 3rd, 2007 at 6:27 pm | Report this commentA Bavarian in Belgium-
Edmund Stoiber (Germany’s former CSU party leader who turned down the chance to be Germany’s next chancellor after Schröder) is due to arrive in Brussels on a mission to reduce bureaucracy in the EU. It will be most interesting to hear regularly in the Brussels Blog how Stoiber is getting on with the job.
Posted by: FH | November 4th, 2007 at 10:54 am | Report this commentOf course it’s true that people from Wales, Scotland, N.Ireland and England would be unable to answer such questions about the other components of the UK. While devolution may eventually lead to independence, it is rarely discussed in the same apocalyptic terms as Belgium, and rarely predicted with such glee by foreigners…
Belgians indeed have a lot in common - for example, they are all ill-served by their current class of unstatesmanlike politicians…
Posted by: David | November 5th, 2007 at 9:24 am | Report this commentI live in Belgium (Antwerp). Life here is very good, stress is low and the food is second to no other EU country. There being no government has had no visible effect on life here nor on the excellent services. Perhaps this is the way forward for all countries?
Posted by: Paul Riordan | November 15th, 2007 at 1:44 pm | Report this commentROGER SMITH VERSUS MICHAEL MOORE?
Judge for yourself…
http://www.newmediajournal.us/guest/m_westfall/04142007.htm
http://michaelwestfall.tripod.com/id17.html
Posted by: George | December 4th, 2007 at 12:03 pm | Report this commentIn reply to George I’d disagree with two points, the first he makes, and agree with the third.
In Flanders, and certainly Antwerp, life can be good…for some people. Unfortunately too often or not if you’re a ‘foreigner’ (and that includes the British) it can be a case of constantly wading through a stream of, at the least, low level discrimination or racism, or Kafkaesque bureaucracy.
This is after all the city where 33% vote for a party whose ‘professionalism’ makes the BNP look like an amateur-dramatics group, and where you would indeed suprise me if you could name one non-white, non-Flemish looking person who’s presented anything on television in the last decade.
On the second point, food being “second to no other EU country”, again I’d disagree. There are many wonderful restaurants but still a large number which wouldn’t stand comparison even with a many English pubs. Likewise the supermarkets for that matter.
The third point though is correct. On a local level for most people it’s life as normal.
Posted by: Michael | December 4th, 2007 at 6:33 pm | Report this commentEverytime I visit Britain (this since 40 years) I see so many poor people (compared to Flanders).
Posted by: ludo roes | December 9th, 2007 at 12:00 pm | Report this comment