Belgium at the Brink

Wall Street Journal ^ | January 16, 2013 | Martin Buxant

[JerseyanExile]

Three years ago, I was having lunch in an Italian restaurant with the leader of Belgium's Flemish nationalist party, Bart De Wever. "Give me Elio Di Rupo as prime minister of Belgium and then make Prince Philippe a king," the head of the New Flemish Alliance told me. "Within five years Belgium will be finished. Game over."

At the time I took it as a joke, or perhaps some braggadocio from a man who might have become somewhat detached from reality following the huge success of his party in the 2010 elections.

Three years later, it turns out Mr. De Wever's prediction was anything but a joke. Next year Belgium will see two major elections, and everyone who has been involved in Belgian politics lately knows that chaos is around the corner for this little kingdom.

The latest political crisis started brewing almost as soon as the last one ended. In December 2011, a coalition of Belgian politicians finally formed a government, having gone 541 days without one—a world record for the amount of time between a democratic election and the formation of a government, with Iraq a distant second at 249 days. The Socialist Elio Di Rupo became prime minister, the first time in 37 years that a French-speaking Walloon had occupied this seat. Roughly 60% of Belgium's population is a Dutch-speaking Fleming.

The language-based public-opinion gap is continuing to widen and is now compounded by Belgium's socioeconomic divides, which also splits along north-south lines. Put simply, Flanders votes largely for conservative parties, while in Wallonia and Brussels, the Socialist Party has traditionally been dominant. This makes every decision and every new measure subject to endless discussion.

[GeronL]

Brussels, the most Islamic city in Europe

[expat1000]

>>Brussels, the most Islamic city in Europe

Really? I thought that was Malmo, Sweden, which is just about 50% Muslim now.

I have a Dutch friend who was telling me that many Belgians want to split off and join Holland - those in the richer provinces - I guess that would be the northern areas. They are fed up subsidizing rest of Belgium. And that the Dutch would welcome them. I got the impression it is quite a serious movement.

[GeronL]

I guess they keep passing each other in the %... Brussels is definitely close

[Bon mots]

Behind a pay-wall, I could not read it.
:(

[pepsionice]

This is a guaranteed break-up.

But I will state this. Germans have woke up in the last five years to realize their government runs the same tax and distribute game as Belgium. Hessen and Bavaria are among the richest states in Germany...which watch a good bit of their income float over to five or six really marginal states. They’ve hinted that this distribution game needs to come to an end, and the money stay in the state that it’s earned.

I suspect that if you go through Italy, Austria and Spain...you might find the same separatist movements alive and flourishing. The EU might wake up in ten years to find six smaller countries flopping out of the old counties.

[FreedomPoster]

Belgium is like short people in the Randy Newman song - it has got no reason to live.

Partition it between Holland and France and get it over with. It is clearly not working as a country.

[mvonfr]

A bit more from the linked article:

Mr. Di Rupo is a self- made, outspoken homosexual of Italian origin, a man who grew up in a single-parent family in abject poverty. His hard upbringing has made him very popular with Walloons—his resistance to Flemish demands for more autonomy even more so.

The flip side is that Mr. Di Rupo remains totally disconnected from Flemish reality and appears utterly incapable of learning Dutch. This makes it difficult if not impossible for him to explain and sell his government’s policies in the northern part of his country, and forces him to rely on his deputies when he wants to speak to Flemish constituents. Mainly because of his inability to communicate, public opinion in Flanders is that Mr. Di Rupo has effectively failed as prime minister.

[Mister Da]

I'm not sure the EU bureaucracy much cares if Belgium breaks up, or if any other EU country breaks up. Countries within the EU aren't nearly as important than the EU itself, as they likely see it. Smaller, weaker “countries” are easier to bully from Brussels.

As time goes on & multiculturalism dilutes nationality, EU countries will disintegrate into enclaves of culturally similar people. National governments will weaken as the EU takes preeminence. In 100 years, there will be no Germany, France, or Holland - only city-states within the greater EU & chaos scripted in Brussels.

[Georgia Girl 2]

If things don’t change drastically here you will see the same thing happening.