We're all Belgians now

Europe will be the Belgian way or it will not be, the one liner goes. It means that Belgian isn't a state, but a compromise seeking coalition of two states, even a permanent diplomatic meeting. It means that the EU isn't a superstate, but a coalition of many states. Even the Economist says this week 'we're all Belgians now.'

Anyway, in less than two weeks Belgium has captured two big posts in the EU. Former prime minister Herman Van Rompuy became the first president of the EU. And now former minister of foreign affairs Karel De Gucht gets the powerful post of trade commissioner in the European Commission. The EU is a bit more Belgian now than it was last month.

Bart Haeck

Here we go again

Here we go again. This Wednesday, Yves Leterme will be sworn in as the 67th prime minister of Belgium. But not only Yves Leterme is back, in the first place Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde is back where it once was: in the middle of the political attention.

How did this happen? Well, first of all Herman Van Rompuy became the first president of the EU, leaving his seat as prime minister vacant. His party, CD&V, decided that Yves Leterme should make his comeback. Despite his resignation after the Fortisgate-scandal, he is still the strong man of the party and still has a solid electoral basis in his district, the province West-Vlaanderen.

But with Leterme the demons of the political crisis of 2007 came back. Herman Van Rompuy had finished three out of five of his 'wharfs': the budget, an energy deal with GDF Suez and an agreement on migration policy. The two other wharfs were the biggest: BHV and the state reform.

BHV is a very tricky one, and for those trying to understand Belgian politics it's essential to understand its importance and complexity. It is an issue of territory and language, cultural identity. And because so many promises have been made, it has become an issue of political credibility too. Alas the promises rule each other out. Something gotta give, one day.

A small reminder of the historical context: In the seventies and eighties, Belgium tried to solve its language problems by dividing the country in four areas with a different official language regime: Flanders (Dutch), Wallonia (French), Brussels (Dutch and French) and the small German community near the German border (German).

The whole country - communities, jurisdictions, electoral districts, ... - is divided along these language frontiers. There is one exception: the electoral district (and justice district) Brussels Halle Vilvoorde. For that reason the constitutional court declared the electoral district not in line with the constitution.

In the French speaking part of the country, things are seen in a less legal but more emotional way. Splitting up the electoral district will lead to the break up of the whole country, it is feared. As Flanders is the richer part of Belgium, this would leave Wallonia impoverished.

In this context politicians on both sides of the language borders have done big promises. Yves Leterme promised his Flemish voters to solve the issue in 'five minutes of political courage', a phrase that still is haunting him. And the French speaking politicians only want to split the district if the territory of Brussels can be expanded, which is unacceptable for Flemings. They think Brussels is already to dominant French speaking and often feel it's not their capital but almost a foreign city. What's more, changing the language frontiers - which are fixed in the constitution - is probably more difficult than splitting up an electoral district.

So that's why here we go again. The name of Yves Leterme as the new prime minister was barely whispered last week, or the French speaking politicians started getting nervous again. As a consequence, CD&V had to take everything it got to prepare the comeback of Leterme.

First of all, former prime minister Wilfried Martens started negotiating with the government parties - especially the French speaking ones. The subject of the talks was a bit surreal: the way in wich BHV will be discussed. This shows how the top politicians of the country do not trust each other. The big question was if Yves Leterme could preside the negotiations on BHV or not. If he did, he would make it more difficult maybe, given his track record and his credibility problem due to his 'five minutes of political courage'. But if he didn't, some people feared a replay of the Egmontpact in 1978: the presidents of the political parties negotiated the agreement, but the prime minister, Leo Tindemans, refused to back it, which made him extremely popular with Flemish voters but made a compromise even more difficult.

Former prime minister Martens found a solution in sending another political veteran in the field: former prime minister Jean-Luc Dehaene. He will start searching a solution for BHV. In this way, the issue is evacuated from the government, so Yves Leterme can make his comeback. Politics in Belgium is never a walk in the park.

Bart Haeck

Till debt do us part

Last week Paul Krugman, who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2008, was in Belgium and was interviewed in De Tijd. Asked about a very Belgian thing - public debt - he wasn't too worried, he said. Krugman called it an 'issue', but not a killing 'issue'.

In fact, the Belgian case seemed a source of some mild optimism. Belgium has showed, Krugman argued, that an advanced country can have a public debt of 120 percent of GDP without provoking a financial crisis. The only major problem a country can suffer is that financial markets no longer believe it will pay back its government bonds. Throughout the years, Belgium has showed that it takes a very high level of debt in order to provoke such a fundamental distrust.

That same week, Krugman used the debt track record of Belgium in his blog to show that public debt and deficits are not the main problems for the US, it is the faltering economy. If Belgium can do it, the US certainly can, seems the idea. An unexpected variation on 'Yes, we can'.

Bart Haeck

Who is Herman Van Rompuy?

Who is Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian prime minister who may very well become the first president of the EU? Well, he's a quiet intelligent man, who loves books, understands economy and writes Japanse poetry. A religious family man also, who bought a Vespa when he was in his fifties (he first wanted a BMW-bike, but his wife downplayed his ambition) and is told to know surprisingly much about football. A man who looks rather stern, but can be very witty.

As a politician he is atypical. He never had a local career in politics. Instead he built his political fortune on economics. Van Rompuy is the son of an Economics professor, is a trained economist himself and worked in the early seventies three years for the Belgian National Bank.

In the eighties he was the head of Cepess, the think-tank of the christian-democrats. This wasn't a purely academic thing, as he revolted against the federal government of prime minister Wilfried Martens (also christian-democrat). Each year Van Rompuy's Cepess made a sharp analysis why the federal policy on budget and economy wasn't what the country needed. As a result he was not exactly on speaking terms with Wilfried Martens, a situation that lasted 25 years and only got back to normal a few years ago.

Van Rompuy knows how Belgian politics work. He was a coalition negotiator for most of the governments of Wilfried Martens and Jean-Luc Dehaene. He was chairman of CVP from 1988 till 1993, a time when the party delivered the prime minister. He was minister of Budget from 1993 until 1999.

Van Rompuy, who also has a degree in philosophy, was remarkably silent after 1999, when Guy Verhofstadt (Open VLD) drove the christian-democrats out of power. For eight years he barely spoke in parliament. It seen as an example of his ability to live detached and put things in perspective, his own position included.

People saw him as a conservative religious christian-democrat at that time - an image that had been shaped during the debates about a more liberal abortion legislation. But some years later he started a website on which he made comments on politics, wrote his haiku's and posted quotations about politics and life in general.

He also was in the jury of a popular human intrest TV show, and suddenly Flanders discovered that Van Rompuy is a very witty man.

Things took a twist in 2007, when Yves Leterme tried to form a government but failed. Van Rompuy operated as a discrete bridge builder and put Leterme back on track. He was rewarded and became president of the lower house in parliament (De Kamer - La Chambre). It seemed a perfect cast. The philosopher in Van Rompuy likes to stand way above the political bickering.

So perfect, that when Yves Leterme resigned from his post as prime minister, Van Rompuy didn't want to succeed him. It took one or two weeks for the top politicians of CD&V to convince him to do it. But in the end, he did it. After that, Yves Leterme hoped for a quick come back as prime minister, but Van Rompuy didn't let him. On his website he once posted a suspiciously appropriate quotation of Emile Loubet, president of France in 1900 : 'I did't come here for my pleasure, and I will not leave for the pleasure of others.'

Since then, Van Rompuy governs the country in his own style. He doesn't say much, which has created - to his own surprise, he once admitted- an atmosphere of stability. He is seen as a prime minister without 'sturm und drang', but who waits for the right moment, analyzes the situation perfectly and then goes for a realistic solution. Some people think that's a bit cynic or the result of a lack of ambition, others say it's the most intelligent way to do something in a difficult country as Belgium. 

It may be the best way to preside a debate between 27 heads of states and government leaders. It takes pragmatism and a low profile strategy to mend big political egos. 'I'm not interested in passion', Van Rompuy said last summer in an interview in De Tijd', 'I'm interested in results.'

Bart Haeck

Herman Van Rompuy for president?

He is very low profile, is a christian-democrat and lives in the old heart of Europe. And apparently that's all it takes to be a candidate. The question of the week is: will Belgian prime minister Herman Van Rompuy (CD&V) become the first president of the European Union?

Although the international press doesn't pay much attention to it, speculation in the Belgian press is running wild.

It seems that the Belgian political world is happy for mister Van Rompuy that he is a candidate, but worries about who will replace him at the head of government. It seems that former prime minister Yves Leterme (CD&V) is first in line, but he has a bad track record when it comes to negotiating a state reform. Unfortunately, that issue is on top of the to-do-list of the federal government for 2010 and 2011. Some politicians are already saying that if Van Rompuy leaves, the government should call elections.

It's all hypothetical for now. But one thing seems sure: Belgian politics recently calmed down. Not much is needed to disturb it.

Bart Haeck

Do you have to let it linger?

'Do you have to let it linger?', the Cranberries sang in 1993 and that's exactly what one could think about the ongoing political soap opera of the electoral district Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (BHV). Last week, the regional parliament of the German speaking community in Belgium has called a new 'belangenconflict' (conflict of interests), a procedure that prevents a federal vote on the issue.

'What's the point?', one could ask. A few words.

First of all, Belgium is built on a very volatile equilibrium between language communities. It was difficult to reach the equilibrium, and every detail that changes it has the potential of disturbing it thoroughly. That's why, as we explained in a previous post, splitting the electoral district Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde is such a touchy thing to do.

In short, the Flemings consider it as an aberration that an electoral district is not organized along the constitutional imposed language frontiers of the country. The French speaking part of the country sees splitting up the electoral district as a first step to an independent Flemish state. It's difficult to find a compromise between these two opinions.

But the thing is that the very essence of Belgian politics is compromise. This is not a fluffy intellectual consideration, it is written in the constitution. If the Dutch speaking members of parliament (who are in the majority) want to vote legislation that is considered harmful by the French speaking part of the country, the French speaking members op federal parliament can stop the vote for a while. This is called the alarm bell procedure. It is meant to create time to find a compromise.

A variation on this procedure is the 'belangenconflict', a rather ill chosen word that literally means 'conflict of interests'. If e.g. a regional parliament is considering adopting legislation that is considered harmful by another parliament of the country, the latter can suspend the voting procedure. Since this alarm bell procedure and belangenconflict were written in the constitution, politicians talk about the 'grendelgrondwet', or the 'bolt and lock constitution'.

This explains why in may 2008 the French speaking politicians were so shocked when the Flemish MP's  in the commission of home affairs of the federal parliament started voting on the splitting up of BHV. It was a culture shock for a political system that has avoiding conflict in its DNA.

After that vote, the legislation still had to be passed in the plenum session of the federal parliament. This has still not happened yet because the conflict avoiding procedures are doing their work. First the parliament of the French speaking community called a 'belangenconflict'. Then the parliaments of the Walloon region and of the French speaking community in Brussels did the same. The time for negotiating had ended, but now the German speaking minority has called a new belangenconflict.

This is becoming surrealist, as the German speaking minority (near the German border) doesn't have anything to do with an electoral district in and near Brussels. The thing is that the tiny German speaking minority is situated on the territory of the regional government of Wallonia and wants more devolutionary power to make its own policy on things as urbanization or cultural heritage. It's the Walloon region that has to grant them. So it did the French speaking politicians of the Walloon region a favor, expecting one in return.

As a result Belgium has (roughly counted) another 100 days to find a solution. Will it find it? It's very unlikely, as the Flemish politicians consider every negotiable solution not done. Why should you do that if the constitutional court has annulled the part of the law that created the electoral district BHV?

Will federal parliament vote within 100 days, Flemings against French speaking MP's? Well, maybe, but everything will be done to prevent it. Maybe even the alarm bell procedure will be used. In the second half year of 2010 Belgium presides the EU. It doesn't want a new crisis in the run-up to it. Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde? The government will do its best to let it linger.

Bart Haeck

The end of the recession

So now it's official: the recession has ended in Belgium. The Institute of National Accounts (INR in Dutch, ICN in French) announced on Friday that the Belgian economy in the third quarter grew with 0.5% on Q2Q basis. After 12 months of shrinking activities, GDP is growing again.

The  good news about this is that it actually happened, which e.g. in the UK is not yet the case. The second good thing about it is that the Belgian government didn't do much to boost the economy, which means we're talking about real growth. No need to worry about about an exit strategy.

Not all happy happy joy joy

The time to stop worrying altogether, however, has not come to an end. First of all, economists fear that the growth in the third quarter is due to stock building, not to an increasing demand. Secondly, that the recession is over doesn't mean it's all happy happy joy joy. Unemployment stays on the rise. Figures released by the Flemish government show on Monday that the jobless ratio in October was 7.2%, which is 22% more than a year ago. Unemployment is now rising with 20 to 23 % since May.

It is expected it will stay this way for 6 to 9 months. Unemployment traditionally lags GDP evolution. In an interview with our newspaper, De Tijd, the Flemish prime minister Kris Peeters said this weekend he fears that on the job market the worst is still to come.

Bart Haeck

The  good news about this is that it actually happened, which e.g. in the UK is not yet the case. The second good thing about it is that the Belgian government didn't do much to boost the economy, which means we're talking about real growth. No need to worry about about an exit strategy.

Not all happy happy joy joy

The time to stop worrying altogether, however, has not come to an end. First of all, economists fear that the growth in the third quarter is due to stock building, not to an increasing demand. Secondly, that the recession is over doesn't mean it's all happy happy joy joy. Unemployment stays on the rise. Figures released by the Flemish government show on Monday that the jobless ratio in October was 7.2%, which is 22% more than a year ago. Unemployment is now rising with 20 to 23 % since May.

It is expected it will stay this way for 6 to 9 months. Unemployment traditionally lags GDP evolution. In an interview with our newspaper, De Tijd, the Flemish prime minister Kris Peeters said this weekend he fears that on the job market the worst is still to come.

Bart Haeck