Belgische politiek #12 - Woensdag D-Day

quote:

Op donderdag 8 november 2007 20:52 schreef Aufruhr het volgende:

[..]

Wat was je reactie ?

quote:

Op donderdag 8 november 2007 21:32 schreef zuiderbuur het volgende:
Om bij te huilen :
miserabel slecht artikel op AD.nl
Iedereen met een internetcorrectie kan de onzin in dit artikel ontkrachten....

quote:

Op donderdag 8 november 2007 21:38 schreef Joost-mag-het-weten het volgende:

[..]

Hebben ze Le Soir ofzo dat artikel laten schrijven

quote:

Op donderdag 8 november 2007 23:40 schreef tupolev141 het volgende:
Ik zag zonet Sabine Hagedoren. In Wallonie geldt code yellow en in de Hoge Venen code orange.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 november 2007 23:43 schreef Joost-mag-het-weten het volgende:

[..]

Nergens de code orange-bleu ?

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 november 2007 10:51 schreef Heero87 het volgende:
Ondertussen staat het kartel CD&V - N-VA zwaar onder druk. CD&V heeft ingestemd met het idee om de staatshervorming buiten de regeringsvorming te houden en in een Raad der Wijzen te organiseren, wellicht was het gewoon hun idee. De N-VA reageerde gisteren nog niet, zij beraden zich nog over hun antwoord. Het wordt niet uitgesloten dat de N-VA straks niet mee in de regering stapt, maar ze wel vanuit de oppositie zal steunen.

Leterme wordt straks dus gewoon premier van een regering zonder staatshervorming en zonder oplossing voor BHV in het regeerakkoord...

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 november 2007 15:08 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:

[..]

Gaat nog leuk worden als zo'n kabinet vroegtijdig valt.

Net was Filip DeWinter op de radio en die gooide er maar eens wat krachttermen tegenaan. Het is duidelijk dat hij bloed ruikt. In hoeverre dat chronische zelfoverschatting is laat ik aan jullie over

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 november 2007 18:04 schreef racing-weirdo het volgende:
ben eerst limburger geweest

gekke belgen

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 november 2007 18:19 schreef zagevent het volgende:
http://www.nouvellerevolution.net.tc/

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 november 2007 18:19 schreef zagevent het volgende:
http://www.nouvellerevolution.net.tc/

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 november 2007 19:58 schreef Heero87 het volgende:

[..]

Dat is ook het meest realistische...

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 november 2007 20:14 schreef Heero87 het volgende:

[..]

Ik geloof daar niet in. Brussel zal waarschijnlijk een referendum houden, en de kans dat ze dan voor Vlaanderen kiezen is quasi nihil. Op zo'n moment zal niet de rede, wel het hart spreken. Het zal Brusselse onafhankelijkheid worden, een soort Monaco dus, of samen met Wallonië of Frankrijk.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 november 2007 20:19 schreef Heero87 het volgende:

[..]

Vlaamse bedrijven in Brussel? Alsof dat er zoveel zijn...

Dat soort zaken blijft trouwens mijn fundamentele bewaar tegen de splitsing van België: die periode van totale onzekerheid, nationaal en internationaal.

quote:

Belgium's governmentlessness

The BHV question

Nov 8th 2007 | BRUSSELS
From The Economist print edition

The jokes over Belgium's failure to form a government begin to turn sour

NOT with a whimper, but with a bang. After 150 days of squabbling over the formation of a new government, Belgium's political elite brought their fragile system of consensus rule crashing down on November 7th, with a direct clash between the two feuding linguistic groups. The official cause sounds technical: a bid by politicians from the Flemish majority to abolish the bilingual rights of 150,000 French-speakers who live in (otherwise Dutch-only) suburbs near Brussels. But by putting the plan to a vote in a parliamentary committee, Flemish leaders have broken the decades-old “Belgian pact”, under which the two language groups avoid holding a straight sectarian vote.

The vote itself was pure theatre. French-speaking members stormed out as soon as the motion was put, and it is now buried under a blizzard of procedural points. At issue is the splitting up of an electoral district known as Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (BHV) that straddles the boundaries of bilingual Brussels and monolingual Flanders. The effect would be to strip French-speakers in the “Halle-Vilvoorde” bit of the right to vote for French-speaking politicians from Brussels, and also of the right to have court cases heard by French-speaking judges. To the Flemish, it is anomalous for French-speakers to live in pristine Dutch-speaking suburbs, but still enjoy the rights they would have if they lived in Brussels. To their opponents, the Flemish are bent on a polite form of ethnic cleansing, creating a linguistically “pure” Flanders from which French is banished.

At least initially, the French-speakers did not walk away from the coalition talks altogether. Beneath their noisy outrage over the vote, French-speaking leaders muttered that coalition talks should perhaps continue on other matters. But real damage has been done. Until this week, the establishment could pretend that five months of talks over forming a new government were merely an extreme form of business as usual: coalitions across the language divide always take several weeks to form. Seasoned politicians have been rolling their eyes and tut-tutting as articles appeared in the foreign press, asking if the country was in a crisis that might lead to its break-up. It was only this week that the post-war record for squabbling (148 days, set in 1988) was beaten by Yves Leterme, the Flemish Christian Democrat who is leading the coalition talks.

The sages murmured that the crisis has dragged on so long only because younger politicians such as Mr Leterme have little experience of coalition-building or indeed of federal government, and so know few of their counterparts from the other linguistic camp. Others blamed the European single currency, saying that the stability of the euro has made it safe for politicians to squabble forever: in the days when Belgian had its own franc, the threat of currency turmoil concentrated minds admirably. Yet this soothing talk sounds less convincing now that an ugly truth has been exposed: that the Flemish majority (who make up 60% of the population) are bent on re-ordering Belgium so that they have less to do with their French-speaking compatriots, whether they like it or not.

This could have been seen coming. Mr Leterme, formerly premier of Flanders, won the federal election on June 10th with a campaign based on flirting with separatism. In one notorious interview last year, he called Belgium an “accident of history” with no intrinsic value. Despite (or because of) this, he is still the man most Flemings want to see as prime minister (his approval rating in Flanders remains around 70%). He also has a mandate to stick it to French-speakers. A poll on November 5th in Het Laatste Nieuws, a Flemish newspaper, found that nine out of ten Dutch-speakers want to press on with stripping bilingual rights from French-speakers in BHV. The poll found only a narrow majority in favour of keeping Belgium together: as many as 63% thought an eventual break-up was inevitable.

To outsiders, this week's row could hardly have been more obscure. It is not much easier for Belgians, who have spent days studying supplements and wall charts given away with newspapers about the BHV question. It is perhaps enough to know only this: Belgium's feuding French- and Dutch-speaking politicians, often compared to partners in a grumpy (yet oddly long-lasting) marriage, have broken the taboo of direct confrontation. That need not spell the end of the union, but it is hardly a good omen for the future.