Regional divisions threaten to break Belgium apart

[Hannah Bell]

Belgium, a nation that has existed for 180 years and whose capital, Brussels, is home to the headquarters of the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), is today on the brink of disintegration.

Parliamentary elections were held last June 13...Since the June election, some 230 days have passed with Belgium under the rule of only an acting government. Only one country in the world has existed longer without assembling a parliamentary regime—namely, Iraq, for 289 days.

Led by its chairman Bart De Wever in the last elections, the Flemish-nationalist New-Flemish Alliance (N-VA) became the strongest party in Flanders. It won most votes and secured 27 seats in the 150-seat parliament. In the French-speaking south, the social democratic Socialist Party (PS) won 26 seats, making it the second largest parliamentary bloc.

For months, those two parties negotiated with five others about the formation of a government and the reform of state institutions. This came to nothing, and a resolution to the crisis seems nowhere in sight.

De Wever considers Belgium to be the “sick man” of Europe, as the election winner himself explained in an interview with the Der Spiegel magazine at the end of last year. De Wever made his position quite clear at the time. “If we join such a (coalition) government, there is a great risk we will lose the next election”. He is striving to establish a republic in Flanders, where about 60 percent of Belgium’s 11 million people live....Belgium’s central government no longer wields any significant political or social power...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/belg-j31.shtml