Belgium's permanent government, formed after 9 months of rather constipated effort, is falling apart after having functioned for 4 months. Not a very good efficiency coefficient. The Prime Minister Yves Leterme handed in his resignation yesterday.
It is kind of funny that Belgium's motto is literally "Unity creates Strength". In German, one of the three official languages, it is "Einigkeit macht stark", which nowadays sounds almost as grimly self-ironic as "Arbeit macht frei".
To add a minor insult to the major one, there just was a small earthquake there, as if the country literally wants to fall apart.
The resignation has yet to be accepted by the king, and the politicians are already arguing over whether to form a new caretaker government or have a new election.
Showing posts with label belgium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label belgium. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The Belgian government
Belgium has a government now. Took them only 9 months and 10 days.
They seem to be pretty quiet on the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde issue, as well as on most other minor issues, such as the budget or absence thereof, but they promise to be for everything good and against everything bad, and to boost the confidence in government. Who would have thought...
They seem to be pretty quiet on the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde issue, as well as on most other minor issues, such as the budget or absence thereof, but they promise to be for everything good and against everything bad, and to boost the confidence in government. Who would have thought...
Monday, December 10, 2007
Business as usual: Belgium still without government
It's been 6 months since Belgium last had a real government. It has a caretaker government now, and no real one in sight.
Last week Yves Leterme, the guy who was supposed to form the government and become the new Prime Minister, said "bugger it" and decided to resign. Again.
No shit. His last questions to the prospective coalition partners were "Are all topics admissible to be discussed in the special commission for state reform?", "Will the regions be given more leeway in regulating enterprise tax rates?" and "Can law proposals for state reform be adopted by any constitutional two-thirds majority, without extra conditions, as well?". The prospective coalition partners (Wallonia's Christian Democrats) answered "no" to all of the above.
The king appointed the current acting Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, as informateur, a person who tries to find out the chances of setting up various kinds of coalitions.
Some people are calling for a new election, but if I understood them right they cannot have a new election until they decide something on partitioning the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde electoral district, and this attempt of partitioning it is one of the reasons they cannot form a government in the first place. Besides, there is no reason to this the new election would end any differently from the old election.
Last week Yves Leterme, the guy who was supposed to form the government and become the new Prime Minister, said "bugger it" and decided to resign. Again.
No shit. His last questions to the prospective coalition partners were "Are all topics admissible to be discussed in the special commission for state reform?", "Will the regions be given more leeway in regulating enterprise tax rates?" and "Can law proposals for state reform be adopted by any constitutional two-thirds majority, without extra conditions, as well?". The prospective coalition partners (Wallonia's Christian Democrats) answered "no" to all of the above.
The king appointed the current acting Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, as informateur, a person who tries to find out the chances of setting up various kinds of coalitions.
Some people are calling for a new election, but if I understood them right they cannot have a new election until they decide something on partitioning the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde electoral district, and this attempt of partitioning it is one of the reasons they cannot form a government in the first place. Besides, there is no reason to this the new election would end any differently from the old election.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Belgium, 149
Today is the 149th day that Belgium is without a government. The number is meaningful because it means that they have just beat their previous record of 148.
Life goes on, nobody seems to care much.
Life goes on, nobody seems to care much.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Freedom of assembly, Belgian style
Yesterday there was an illegal demonstration against the islamisation of Europe in Brussels.
It was supposed to be a fairly big demonstration, but Freddy Thielemans, the mayor of Brussels, banned it on the basis that it would piss Muslims off and therefore disturb the public order.
While it is, of course, funny that the mayor of Brussels decided to make the demonstrators' point for them, the whole thing is alarming, for two reasons:
1) If Muslims become violent when a group of citizens expresses their opinion, or if there is a credible reason to believe that they might, then the islamization of Europe, or at least of Brussels, has alreagy progressed pretty damn far.
2) If demonstrations are banned because somebody who doesn't like them might become violent, it means that anyone can get anyone else's demonstration banned by producing a sufficiently credible threat. Do you wanna guess whether this will reduce or raise the number of threats?
Anyway, the ban kept most of the prospective demonstrators away, but 200 people or so did show up. They did not do anything violent (at least until being dragged to the police car) or incite to violence. There was a number of politicians among them, including two of the leaders of the Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang, and an Italian MEP.
Police almost outnumbered (and, by some reports, really outnumbered) the demonstrators, and arrested 154 of them. Wow. 154 out of 200 is almost like in the old Soviet Union.
Seriously, has anyone ever heard of a peaceful demonstration in a Western country where over 75% of the participants got arrested?
For the record: Muslims did not attack the demonstration or do anything else violent.
It was supposed to be a fairly big demonstration, but Freddy Thielemans, the mayor of Brussels, banned it on the basis that it would piss Muslims off and therefore disturb the public order.
While it is, of course, funny that the mayor of Brussels decided to make the demonstrators' point for them, the whole thing is alarming, for two reasons:
1) If Muslims become violent when a group of citizens expresses their opinion, or if there is a credible reason to believe that they might, then the islamization of Europe, or at least of Brussels, has alreagy progressed pretty damn far.
2) If demonstrations are banned because somebody who doesn't like them might become violent, it means that anyone can get anyone else's demonstration banned by producing a sufficiently credible threat. Do you wanna guess whether this will reduce or raise the number of threats?
Anyway, the ban kept most of the prospective demonstrators away, but 200 people or so did show up. They did not do anything violent (at least until being dragged to the police car) or incite to violence. There was a number of politicians among them, including two of the leaders of the Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang, and an Italian MEP.
Police almost outnumbered (and, by some reports, really outnumbered) the demonstrators, and arrested 154 of them. Wow. 154 out of 200 is almost like in the old Soviet Union.
Seriously, has anyone ever heard of a peaceful demonstration in a Western country where over 75% of the participants got arrested?
For the record: Muslims did not attack the demonstration or do anything else violent.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
The beginning of an end?
Belgium has been without a government since June 10th.
I remember a strike of the federal administration in the US about 10 years ago. It lasted for a couple of months, and ended when the federal administration became concerned that if this goes on, the citizenry might notice that they are doing just as fine without them. Strikes are no fun if it turns out that nobody has needed you at work in the first place.
Belgium is well over the two-months mark, and the politicians are understandably concerned. An optimistic friend of mine said yesterday that they shouldn't fret, because if the country falls apart the resulting two countries will need a double set of politicians so nobody is left without work. Problem is, they already have a triple set, and that's not even counting all the EU politicians.
The underlying problem is that Flanders wants more autonomy, Wallonia wants less, and nothing really happens without the mutual consent. The result is probably about as satisfying as a relationship where one party is extremely horny and the other one decided to join the Order of Perpetual Celibacy.
And now they can't form a coalition, because the upcoming constitutional reform is the biggest thing on the list, and they can't find any consensus. Isn't it funny? Belgium is the only European country I know of where parties have tried to play a real sandbox game: they all agreed to keep the unpopular (or rather too-popular among the voters) kid - Vlaams Belang - out of any coalitions, and now they can't produce a coalition to keep it out of. Heh.
I kind of want them to fall apart, at least as long as they can do so peacefully. Partly because I am just very curious about how the thing will be handled bureaucratically, but also because I don't think Flanders needs Wallonia for anything.
I remember a strike of the federal administration in the US about 10 years ago. It lasted for a couple of months, and ended when the federal administration became concerned that if this goes on, the citizenry might notice that they are doing just as fine without them. Strikes are no fun if it turns out that nobody has needed you at work in the first place.
Belgium is well over the two-months mark, and the politicians are understandably concerned. An optimistic friend of mine said yesterday that they shouldn't fret, because if the country falls apart the resulting two countries will need a double set of politicians so nobody is left without work. Problem is, they already have a triple set, and that's not even counting all the EU politicians.
The underlying problem is that Flanders wants more autonomy, Wallonia wants less, and nothing really happens without the mutual consent. The result is probably about as satisfying as a relationship where one party is extremely horny and the other one decided to join the Order of Perpetual Celibacy.
And now they can't form a coalition, because the upcoming constitutional reform is the biggest thing on the list, and they can't find any consensus. Isn't it funny? Belgium is the only European country I know of where parties have tried to play a real sandbox game: they all agreed to keep the unpopular (or rather too-popular among the voters) kid - Vlaams Belang - out of any coalitions, and now they can't produce a coalition to keep it out of. Heh.
I kind of want them to fall apart, at least as long as they can do so peacefully. Partly because I am just very curious about how the thing will be handled bureaucratically, but also because I don't think Flanders needs Wallonia for anything.
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