The king goes to Congo

Should he stay or should he go? The federal government has decided he should go. The 'he' we're talking about is the Belgian king Albert II. And with 'go' we mean going to the festivities in Kinshasa for the 50th anniversary of the independence of Congo, this June.

Don't think this is just a party. Congo is a country with leaders who have a terrible track record of war, where violence against women is widespread. When the Belgian king goes to watch a military parade in June, he will share the grandstand with military officials and ministers who are responsible for this violence, or responsible for tolerating it.

The federal government says the king will not criticize the Congolese government when he's in Kinshasa, because the king is not the right person to do it, nor are festivities the right occasion. Diplomats should give the nasty messages in other times and places.

Two public opinions

As always, there are two public opinions in Belgium on the royal visit. In Flanders, a lot of people think the king should not go. It just isn't appropriate to lend public support to a regime that doesn't deserve such support.

As the discussion in Flanders goes, a lot will now depend on the message the king gives. The king may not be able to criticize the regime, but  could visit a hospital for victims of rape, or bring a visit to the streets of Kinshasa. Shaking more hands with the people of Congo than with its leaders, would probably not go unnoticed in the presidential lounges in Kinshasa.

In the French speaking part of Belgium, there is no discussion whatsoever. The king should go. Why? Because it highlights the international history of Belgium and doing not so would support those people who don't like Belgium (such as the Flemish nationalists), the French speaking newspaper Le Soir wrote some weeks ago. And above all, the king has to go to support the people of Congo, the newspaper said.

This divide is not new. When European Commissioner Karel De Gucht was Belgian minister of foreign affairs, he spoke frankly about incompetence and corruption in Congo. It disrupted the diplomatic ties with the former colony. The Flemish christian-democrats and the French speaking politicians repaired those ties.

And that's the real reason why the king is going. The Congolose president Joseph Kabila has invited the king already, and declining that invitation would pull Belgium back in the De Gucht-era. The federal government doesn't want that.

But one could wonder what one can buy with good Congolese relations. Is it nostalgia? Belgium has no economic interests in Congo anymore. Only 0.1 percent of the Belgian export went to Congo in 2009 (202 million euro on a Belgian export of 179 billion euro). Only 0.1 percent of the Belgian import comes from Congo (153 million euro on a Belgian import of 182 billion).

So what is at stake? Why is Belgium keeping silent? When Karel De Gucht earlier this year in the European Parliament said that the Congolese state has to be rebuilt from scratch to make the country work, the Congolese government answered that the European Commissioner is not welcome anymore in Congo and that even a visa request would be considered as a provocation.

So even Congo makes it clear it doesn't need Belgium. It needs the Chinese and other people who invest in the country without asking too much questions about human rights. In my opinion, that gives Belgium the freedom to make a statement and to refuse the invitation to the king. The federal government has decided otherwise. It now needs to use the visit of the king to make such a statement on human rights nonetheless.

Bart Haeck

A good diagnosis but no treatment

 

A hundred days passed since Herman Van Rompuy became president of the EU-council and Yves Leterme for the second time became Belgian prime minister. It has been a very silent hundred days. A month ago, we wrote in this blog about the uncanny quiet month of January. Things have not changed in February and March.

Surprisingly it is not so difficult to see what needs to happen. The last weeks plenty of academics, politicians and officials published opinions in which they make a sharp analysis of what has gone wrong and what needs to be done. Some of the authors were former Flemish minister of Work and Education and former president of the Flemish Socialist party Frank Vandenbroucke; economist Geert Noels; economist Paul De Grauwe; Caroline Ven, the economic advisor of prime minister Leterme, Alexander De Croo, president of Open VLD, the liberal party that is part of the federal coalition, and Bea Cantillon, a christian-democrat professor on social security.

The essential message these people give is the same: this is no longer an era in which business as usual will do. Belgium needs to restore its competitiveness, has to make preparations to keep its social security affordable, has to get more people back to work en make them work longer and has to scale down government debt.

As easy it is to find someone who makes the right diagnosis, so difficult it is to find someone to start the treatment. Hardly anything is moving. The minister of pensions, the French speaking socialist Michel Daerden, has done a careful suggestion to maybe consider working longer, but that is as good as it gets. No real decisions are expected till the elections of 2011.

This is not only a Belgian problem, but a European one. As the Greeks have showed us, politicians only start to change things when the external pressure on them is high. This pressure can be the financial markets, who speculate on a government bond default, or it can be the European Union or the IMF.

Belgium knows this all too well. The last major social-economic reform happened in the nineties because Belgium wanted to join the eurozone and had to meet the Maastricht-criteria. When street protests got too loud, politicians could say they had to continue because of 'Maastricht'. Having no such external justification in stock, it seems politicians don't think it is time to start reforming.

So how will the second 100 days prime minister Yves Leterme look like? It is assumed that some decisions will be made in April or may and that will be it. From the first of July till the end of December, Belgium is the president of the EU and will make a priority of that. After that, there is an election campaign to start. A good diagnosis it will be. And nothing else.

Bart Haeck