A Flemish Octopus

The first formal steps towards a new government have been taken. King Albert II Monday summoned N-VA-president Bart De Wever and PS-president Elio Di Rupo. Yesterday the two winners of the elections spoke each other for the first time. (It is said they once met each other at a tennis game, but they didn't speak.) Nobody knows where they met, or what they said. That is a good sign.

It is expected that any day now the king will give a senior politician the task to make preparations for negotiations but not start them. That last task if for someone else, who if he succeeds, becomes prime minister. 

In our last blog we focused on the silver linings, but as one can't optimistic every day, let's give some background on one of the difficulties: a state reform.

Mr Di Rupo said he understands that Flanders wants a state reform, but also indicated which lines can not be crossed. One of them is splitting up social security. This is a sensitive point because Flanders, as a region, is richer than the French speaking part of Belgium.

Mr De Wever already made clear that he doesn't want to break up the country in a revolutionary big bang, but is seeking a gradual evolution to a more independent Flanders. He also is very careful to avoid situations in which he could be coined as an extremist separatist. But he also has lines that can't be crossed. For those reasons, it is expected Mr. De Wever will use the Octopus Note of the Flemish government as a bargaining tool.

This Octopus Note is one of the curiosities of Belgian politics and needs a little explanation. In this note, the coalition partners of the Flemish Government of Yves Leterme (2004-2009) agreed on how they saw a better organization of the Belgian state. In 2009 the coalition partners of the new Flemish government confirmed the note. 

This means that four parties are politically bound by the document: the N-VA of Bart De Wever, the Flemish christian-democrats, the Flemish socialists and the Flemish liberals. After the elections of June 13th, these parties have 70 of the 88 Flemish seats in the federal Lower House.

This makes the Octopus Note a very elegant and at the same time powerful instrument for Bart De Wever. By using it in negotiations, he can claim he is a reasonable man. And the three traditional Flemish parties will have to agree. For the French speaking politicians there is no way around it. This is the Flemish line not to cross. 

So what does the Octopus Note say?

First of all it states that the regional governments should get the power to fully decide on labor policy. Now some of these policies are federal. It is expected that this will not be the biggest problem.

More difficult will be health policy and family policy. It means that the regions would pay children allowances and reimburse medical costs. This will be very difficult for the French speaking politicians to accept.

The four Flemish parties also ask more fiscal autonomy. They want almost full political power over the income tax and the VAT. This will also be difficult to accept for French speaking politicians, as they fear to be left behind with a low income population. The latter is all the worse, it is feared in French speaking Belgium, if Brussels and Wallonia have to pay for their own health insurance and family allowances.

In the Octopus Note it is also written that the electoral district Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde has to be split up and that an expansion of the official bilingual Brussels region (which is geographically completely surrounded by Flanders) is out of the question. This will not be easy for French speaking politicians neither. Even the PS asked for an expansion of Brussels in the election campaign.

When it comes to state reform, Elio Di Rupo might find out he is not only dealing with Bart De Wever. He is dealing with this strange but nasty animal: a Flemish octopus.

Bart Haeck

Comments

[Reactie van Bart Haeck]

@PLT. I agree with the most of your comment.

But in this post I didn't intend to give my opinion on why or how social security could or should be split up. I only wanted to explain why it is difficult for French speaking politicians to agree with it. That's all.

[Reactie van PLT]

Why do you associate the sensitivity around splitting social security solely with the fact that Flanders is a richer region ?
We should try to make it clear to the international community that the Flemish are not selfish, unsolidary people but simply need to cope with issues different from the ones the French speaking are facing. Our age pyramid is different - less favourable than the Walloons by the way - and our stats on health care, education and unemployment activation differ considerably. We need a split of social security to solve our problems in a more efficient way (and so do the Walloons by the way...), not to keep money in our pockets. There are other means to maintain our solidarity with the other regions, such as agreement on a yearly contribution (as is done at European level)to name an example.