175 days and still counting

by Ingrid Robeyns on December 2, 2007

So, for anyone who wants to know, “the Belgian crisis”:https://crookedtimber.org/2007/09/19/the-ingredients-of-the-belgian-cocktail/ has arrived at a new absolute low. The coalition negotiations have been broken off. The negotiating Flemish and Francophone parties could not agree on the core issue – whether or not to openly debate in the next years the shift of certain governmental responsibilities from the federal to the regional levels. And I really don’t know what solutions are still available now. Almost all parties seem to impose non-negotiable demands or taboos that together make any coalition impossible. New elections? Not sure whether they would be constitutional – recall that the constitutional court has ruled that the electoral district Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde is currently holding unconstitutional elections, and that problem has not been solved either. To be continued.

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12.12.07 at 8:06 am

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1

Fr. 12.02.07 at 12:20 pm

The crisis used to feature in the French headlines, but have been overthrown by presidential announcements and strikes. Le Monde is blaming the NVA for the stalemate.

2

John F. Opie 12.02.07 at 12:42 pm

What this really means is that Belgium has, for all purposes, ceased to exist as a state.

The sooner that this is realized, the sooner solutions can be found to finalize the dismemberment of Belgium into Flanders and Northern France, with the establishment of Bruxelles as the first independent city in Europe. Could have the status of the District of Columbia.

Of course, it means impoverishment for the new country of Northern France, which they know and will resist.

3

John Emerson 12.02.07 at 2:34 pm

It seems that between U.S. hegemony, the EU, the U.N., and the global economy, increasingly the small countries have little reason to exist. Belgium was always a weird hybrid buffer state anyway, and even back in my childhood functioned internationally as part of the Benelux E.U.

My distant Flemish relatives seem like nasty customers at times, but that’s politics for you. Maybe they can form a union with the Boers.

I can’t see this as a positive development, but it’s hard to think of a reason why it’s a disaster, except that it will set a precedent for dozens of other splitting movements.

4

chris y 12.02.07 at 3:13 pm

John Opie: on the contrary, it demonstrates the fundamental inertial strength of the Belgian state, which continues to function in spite of the political class throwing its toys out of the pram.

Fear does not stalk the streets; people are not starving in garrets; businesses continue to do business; children go to school; the Euro flourishes.

It may well be true that by now the only long term solution involves the dissolution of that state, but the general lesson is that the role of the ministry and parliament in a modern state is a lot less important than ministers and parliamentarians would like us to believe. What conclusions we should draw from that is, of course, another question.

5

Joshua Holmes 12.02.07 at 3:37 pm

I can’t see this as a positive development, but it’s hard to think of a reason why it’s a disaster, except that it will set a precedent for dozens of other splitting movements.

I don’t see why this is a disaster.

6

Ben Alpers 12.02.07 at 4:40 pm

It may well be true that by now the only long term solution involves the dissolution of that state, but the general lesson is that the role of the ministry and parliament in a modern state is a lot less important than ministers and parliamentarians would like us to believe. What conclusions we should draw from that is, of course, another question.

Would this all look different in a country where the head of state, too, was involved in the political crisis? Does it make a difference that the head of state in a constitutional monarchy is above politics?

We (or at least I) generally think of constitutional monarchs as, at best, roundly irrelevant. And I don’t know anything at all about Albert II (beyond the fact that he doesn’t speak one of his country’s language well). But does this the sort of situation actually constitute an argument for constitutional monarchy? (Before anyone accuses me of being a monarchist, let me emphasize that I’m really playing devil’s advocate here. My impulses are entirely (small-r) republican.)

7

Stuart 12.02.07 at 7:22 pm

I wouldn’t have thought it means you need a consitutional monarchy. I think it is more like in a situation where voting is via proportional representation or similar methods where an outright winner (or even likely in some cases) isn’t guaranteed in an election, then you need to set up the unelected part of the government (civil servants or the equivalent) so that they can continue to enact all existing laws, etc., without needing any input from the elected politicians.

Of course this is still hardly an ideal situation, as if this continues for any time you have effectively moved from a democracy to a bureaucracy of the people that happened to be in place when the last government dissolved, and those civil servants now have no one they are immediately accountable to – while the media would likely catch them doing anything too egregious, they likely can get away with interpreting laws and rules to their own preference more than they can get away with while a politician was overlooking their departments actions.

8

David 12.02.07 at 9:59 pm

And some people advocate a one-state solution in Israel/Palestine…

9

Jonathan Edelstein 12.02.07 at 10:33 pm

It seems that between U.S. hegemony, the EU, the U.N., and the global economy, increasingly the small countries have little reason to exist.

The first of these is declining, and the others arguably facilitate the emergence and viability of small states by permitting economies of scale to occur above the state level. I’d say that Luxembourg, for instance, has a much better potential for long-term survival and prosperity inside the EU than out of it.

10

chris y 12.02.07 at 11:27 pm

Thank you Jonathan. Good spot. In fact there is already a (trivially small) faction in Britain that advocates separating the (prosperous) London area from the (actually fairly proseruus, but Londoners are funny) rest of the country precisely because such an adventure might be feasible within the EU.

11

Mitchell Young 12.03.07 at 8:25 am

actually fairly proseruus, but Londoners are funny

As a resident of England, I can assure you that whatever ‘prosperity’ exists is largely an illusion. Housing is cramped, in disrepair, and yet costs a fortune. The metro (Tube) and regional train lines are hugely expensive compared to the rest of the world, and crowded and unreliable to boot. The health system relies on poaching third world labor, and even so (or perhaps because so) is inefficient and shabby. Literally hundreds of thousands of native Brits vote with their feet each year, leaving the country for good.

Its a sad day when leaving London for Barcelona, Madrid, or even Seville seems like taking a trip from barbarity to civilization — but it is so.

12

GreatZamfir 12.03.07 at 9:25 am

I don’t know about any ‘separate London’ movements, but I got the impression that the movement for Scottish indepence, that lead to the Scottish parliament, was given a lot of credubility by the EU, because it made an existence fo Scotland more apart from England a realistic option.

On the other hand, most Flemish people I know are relatively strong in favor of a politically united, federal Europe. Belgian politicians always seem to be the first to call eurosceptics ‘traitors’, or similar things.

13

Doug 12.03.07 at 10:09 am

2: “Bruxelles as the first independent city in Europe”

See Danzig, Free City of (1919-39). Note that this may not be the best of precedents.

Free, and sometimes Hanseatic, cities did rather better in pre-modern Europe. This may also not be the best guid to politics in the 21st century-

14

eulogist 12.03.07 at 2:15 pm

Le Monde is blaming the NVA for the stalemate.

Of course they are, unlikely as it is that their correspondent reads much more than the French-language media (although I have to say, Libé is worse in that respect).

I admit that my first impulse was to blame NVA as well, in accordance with the analysis of French-speaking media that Leterme’s ultimatum questions were designed in such a way that French-speaking CDH was almost forced to say ‘no’ so they could be blamed instead of NVA, which had said ‘no’ to a previous agreement (still following?).

But on second thought, the balance is equally on both NVA and CDH: NVA, for saying ‘no’ to the earlier agreement which involved parking the constitutional discussion with a cross-communitarian convention that would have had to produce proposals before the next elections. CDH for saying ‘no’ to even the possibility of talking about anything meaningful in that context.

Quite interesting to see how the two Liberal parties are now brushing up their cross-linguistic credentials, saying they were never divided (which is pretty close to true) and calling on the christian-democrats of CD&V (Leterme) and CDH to find an agreement between themselves first on the constitutional issues. If cross-linguistic posturing becomes the new trend in Belgian politics, something good may have come of this after all.

15

des von bladet 12.03.07 at 3:07 pm

I for one would welcome any new Belgian cross-linguistic-posturing overlords.

16

Ingrid Robeyns 12.03.07 at 7:57 pm

I agree with Eulogist (#14) – as far as I can tell, the blame can be shared between CDH (francophone Christiandemocrats) and NVA (Flemish nationalist) — though there may also be some indirect responsibility for CD&V (the Flemish Christian democrats): they should have been able to foresee that an election-cartel with a small nationalist party could lead to such stalemates. NVA on its own is a very small party (less than 5%, I think), so if they had not been in this cartel, they would never have had the power they have had now at the negotiation tables.

The latest news from today is that the current prime minister, the liberal Guy Verhofstadt, will conduct some information-rounds with two goals: (1) to find out how talks about a state reform can take off, and (2) to find out how some urgent policy-related decisions that need to be made can be made. He is not going to try to form a new government (his party lost at the last elections), but the king gave him the task to try to deblock the current political crisis. Since he seems to be well-respected among the francophone parties too, there may be a glitter of hope – though Verhofstadt too has stated that he believes that another state reform is necessary, and this is going to be difficult to realise, since it is clear for everyone that socio-economically speaking, the Walloon have very little to gain from such a constitutional reform.

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