Hurrah, Belgium has a government

The good news from Aix is brought to us by EurActiv and one or two other news agencies, including Bloomberg. It seems that early yesterday morning an agreement was reached between the various parties that have been about to form a government in Belgium for the last nine months and as of tomorrow, March 20, there will, indeed, be a government.

How did they manage up till now? Well, in the first place, a great many decisions in Belgium are taken by the regions; in the second place, like all other member states, Belgium also gets somewhere around eighty per cent its legislation from Brussels but Brussels as in capital of Belgium but as capital of the European Union. Confused? You should be.

In the third place, there is a Belgian government. It is led by Guy Verhofstadt, the man who lost that election nine months ago. See? I told you confusion is in order.

The agreement between the parties seems to be a little limited and the seas on which that frail bark will sail promise to be choppy.

The main bone of contention in the coalition negotiations had been demands made by Leterme and his sister party, the Flemish N-VA ("New Flemish Alliance"), a nationalist movement led by Bart De Wever, to grant more autonomy to the country’s regions.

In the end, an agreement was only made possible because Flemish and francophone parties agreed to set aside questions relating to the reform of the Belgian Federal State and to the relations between the country’s two major linguistic communities. Only a few minor transfers of power to the regions have been approved, with parties committing to a deeper reform in the future. The programme also includes promises of higher pensions and lower taxes, although how this will be financed remained vague.

While Leterme described the package as "a good deal for a government, with balanced measures", others say many issues remain unresolved.

The new Prime Minister will be Yves Leterm of the Flemish Christian Democrats. The rest of the government remains to be seen but, for the time being, this is unlikely to change matters as far as the European Union is concerned.

Oh, yes, and in case any of our readers feel bemused by the illustration, that handy little tool kit is made out of Belgian milk chocolate.

Belgium never ceases to amuse

Who would have thought that Belgium will turn out to be the most entertaining country, politically speaking, at the end of 2007? I suppose one can expect anything from a country whose artists and writers were in the forefront of Surrealism. On the plus side, they also produced Hergé, the author of Tintin’s varied and exciting adventures.

Anyway, nobody apart from Perry de Havilland on Samizdata paid any attention to the fact that the Constitutional Reform Lisbon Treaty was signed on behalf of Belgium by Guy Verhofstadt, the man who had lost the election around six months ago but who has been asked to form the interim government.

Perry de Havilland announced that he would go and sign the treaty on Belgium’s behalf because he had as much right to do so as did Mr Verhofstadt and he had a point:

If the people who were voted out of office in Belgium months ago can sign the treaty, then why not me too? They have no more right than I do to sign anything on behalf of Belgium. The fact that the Belgian establishment can and have simply banned popular political parties that do not play by the required consensus should indicate that to all intents, Belgium is not a democracy in any meaningful sense. This latest action indicates Belgium is in fact some sort of divine right oligarchy where being a member of the power elite is all the legitimisation you need.

Hardly a novel idea but the picture of Mr de Havilland signing the treaty on behalf of the Belgians has a certain amusement value.

Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph’s Bruno Waterfield, a hack for whom my colleague has some respect and who is, therefore, superior to other hacks, has produced another cute little tale from the land of surrealism.

It seems that the newly crowned Miss Belgium, pictured here in the traditional picture of the Judas kiss, has incurred the wrath of the Flemish population of Antwerp by being unable to answer even the simplest question in Dutch.

Mr Waterfield does not see what all the fuss is about:

Alizée Poulicek, a 20-year-old language student, was booed by the audience when she failed to respond to questions in Dutch before being crowned Miss Belgium at the weekend in Antwerp, in Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north of Belgium.

Miss Poulicek may be multilingual in French, English and Czech but political correctness demands she also speaks Dutch, the language spoken by Belgium's Flemish majority, whose demands for more autonomy are behind a political crisis that has lasted almost 200 days.

I believe I have already made my dislike of the indiscriminate use of the expression “political correctness” when somebody means I do not like this but have no arguments against it.

Belgium is officially a tri-lingual country and as Mr Waterfield himself acknowledges, the majority are Dutch speaking. Antwerp is a Dutch-speaking town. Miss Poulicek could not learn a few basic sentences in the language? Well, I guess they do not give beauty queen crowns for intelligence. What about jobs to hacks?

Well now, where do we stand on the Belgian government?

The alternate title could be “Will no-one rid us of this pestilential politico?” by which I mean Guy Verhofstadt. I bet the Belgians are saying that as well.

The outgoing Prime Minister, whose supposed successor has thrown in the towel, has been entrusted by King Albert to mediate some kind of a solution. He has been holding meetings with all sorts of people such as the putative new Prime Minister, Yves Leterme, he whose towel has been thrown in. [The two of them are pictured together here.]

In the meantime, M Verhofstadt, who is a member of the Flemish Liberals, has been given extended powers to form an emergency cabinet. As we have said before, with the EU providing most of the legislation and the regional governments taking up what is left, the absence of a federal government in Belgium cannot really be described as an emergency.

However, those are M Verhofstadt’s new powers and he is using them, allegedly, to negotiate new state reforms. All of which is fine and dandy but there is this Treaty signing coming up in just over a week’s time. You know, the Constitutional Reform Lisbon Treaty has to be signed.

Contrary to some opinions expressed by other bloggers, no Prime Minister has to be there. The Maastricht Treaty, as I recall, was signed by the Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Francis Maude. In fact, if one looks through the signatories, they are all plenipotentiaries, signing on behalf of the heads of state and all foreign and economic ministers.

So the King of the Belgians will be represented by a plenipotentiary. But who is going to nominate said plenipotentiary? Can an emergency cabinet appoint a plenipotentiary to sign a very permanent treaty, which will more or less do away with the necessity for any more cabinets? A very pretty constitutional problems seems to be emerging.

Whither Belgium?

Nowhere very far and not very fast either would be the answer to that question. Yesterday the man who would be Prime Minister of that ill-fated country has decided that he has better things to do with his time than play Belgian politics.

According to the Observer:

Yves Leterme, the Flemish Christian Democrat leader who emerged strongest from general elections in June, went to the royal palace in Brussels to tell King Albert he had had enough.

The King accepted Leterme's resignation, but left open the key question of what happens next in the effort to secure a consensus between the country's bitterly divided Dutch-speaking Flemish and francophone Walloon communities.

We have followed the saga of the Belgian government or rather non-government, most recently here and we still cannot understand what all the fuss is about. Let’s be reasonable. Belgium has a perfectly good government. It is the one we all have and it, too, happens to be situated in Brussels.

Furthermore, what is left to the Belgian government is almost entirely devolved to the three federal powers. Of them, it is two, Flanders and Wallonia that really matter. More on Brussels, the third, in a minute.

In addition to the extensive autonomy already exercised by the two regions, the Flemish side is demanding greater powers over taxation and social security, powers that would further impoverish Wallonia, impinge on national solidarity and probably hasten the slow-motion death of a country created by the great European powers in 1830.

Once again, the mourning tone is unimpressive. If Flanders acquiring greater powers over taxation and social security will impoverish Wallonia, then clearly the Flemish have a point when they say that they are keeping the country’s economy going and the Walloons leech off them.

As for national solidarity, if it really had existed, this messy situation would never have arisen.

Over at Brussels Journal, as one would imagine, a great deal of attention has been paid to the so-called crisis, when M Paul Belien does not advertise his extremely prescient book, “A Throne in Brussels”. Shocking. We would never do such a thing on this blog.

In the course of writing two somewhat idiotic quotes from Joshua Keating, who appears to know next to nothing about European history but propounds on it, anyway, there is a reference to M Belien wondering at an early stage of the crisis about the media ignoring this “slow-motion Yugoslavia”.

Well, to be fair, the media across Europe ignored the fast-track Yugoslavia as well with the crisis building up in the late eighties until there was an explosion, first of all in Kosovo, then Slovenia, moving on to Croatia, then Bosnia and back to Kosovo. It took ten years and was eventually settled rather uncertainly by NATO led by the United States.

So we still have a long way to go and because this crisis may not be quite so bloody, it is reasonable to assume that the Americans will leave it to the Europeans to sort out. This could be another one of Europe’s hours, as the Luxembourg Foreign Minister, Jacques Poos described the Balkan wars of the nineties.

There is a good reason why the United States should start thinking about the Belgian crisis. If the country falls apart, Flanders will manage quite well either as part of Netherlands or independently. Wallonia may have to join France, who has expressed no desire for this outcome whatsoever. So, it may have to become an EU mandated territory, kept and run by some off-shoot of the Commission. This might be just the thing the Fragrant Commissar needs to occupy the grey fluff she calls her mind.

Then there is Brussels, the home of the EU government. That, I fear, will have to become an international city, administered by BFOR (Brussels Force) and, possibly, divided into various parts the way Berlin and Vienna were after WWII. A remake of “The Third Man” with various well-known Brussels landmarks could be quite a hit.

There is one problem. One of the institutions whose headquarters is in Brussels is NATO. Assuming the Americans will retain some residual interest in that body, they will have to move HQ out of the divided international city to a friendly pro-American one. Copenhagen would be one possibility with the pro-American Rasmussen having been re-elected again.

We also have a problem with Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), relocated to near Mons in 1967 when France withdrew from NATO’s military structure. Mons is in Wallonia and if the province becomes independent, may well remain as one of the few income-generators there. But what if Wallonia becomes part of France? These things need to be thought about now.

Anyone would think it was a tragedy

The language that surrounds the latest collapse in the possible coalition talks seems to me to be unbearably gloomy. International Herald Tribune quotes Associated Press:

Belgium slumped into one of the deepest political crises in 50 years on Wednesday when coalition talks between Flemish and Francophone parties collapsed under the weight of incessant recriminations between leaders of the language groups.

Well, I don’t know. Why can a country not get on perfectly well without a government? Particularly when, as in the case of every European Union member, the country in question gets something like eighty per cent of its legislation from the real government, the one in Brussels?

Or when, as in the case of Belgium, the country is a federation whose parts have long ago drifted apart?

So, should one really be in such deep mourning and talk of:

Belgium is on the brink. A country formed only in 1830 is staring into the political abyss today, and the distinct possibility of breaking up. Yves Leterme won last summer's elections, and has tried, but so far failed, to form a coalition government to run his country. Today may see the beginning of the end.

To be fair, the latest developments probably have pushed the country further apart:

After a record 150 days without government, Flemish parties worsened the situation by using their majority electoral clout in parliament to vote for the carve-up of a bilingual electoral district in and around Brussels.

They did so for the first time in many decades, and against the wishes of their Francophone counterparts, effectively ditching a long tradition of consensus politics.

Well, that’s it. Ditching a long tradition of consensus politics? I guess that means war but somehow I cannot help thinking of the Marx Brothers in “Duck Soup” when Freedonia goes to war with Sylvania.

"We've lived with a certain balance. Today the Flemish have brutally broken that balance," said Francophone Socialist lawmaker Yvan Mayeur.

"It showed a total lack of loyalty," added Francophone Liberal Francois Xavier de Donnea, whose Flemish sister party voted against wishes.

Hmm. I think I prefer Groucho and Chico Marx exchanging insults. Well, let us be serious. Why exactly should Belgium stay together as a country?

Created in 1830 by perfide Albion as represented by the then Foreign Secretary, Viscount Palmerston, for her own purposes, it has lost the loyalty of a good deal of her population and, as we know from fairly recent history, a country cannot stay together if her people do not wish it.

As for not having a government, well, that’s democracy at work. If the people’s representatives cannot form that government, they had better go back to the people and ask them what is to be done. (On November 7, the ninetieth anniversary of the Bolshevik coup I could not resist that reference, not that either Chernyshevsky or Lenin intended to ask the people that question.)

Belgium has now been without a government for 150 days and we are told that this is a record the country would rather do without. Why? I should have thought it is a record to be proud of and I wish to enter our own country into the competition. Let’s see if we can beat it.

COMMENT THREAD

Shock news - Belgian politicians might agree on something

Everyone seems to have forgotten about the Belgian constitutional crisis, even though it might make the signing of that treaty in December a little difficult. If no government, then who will sign? And Belgium has not had a government for 120 days. Could we possibly achieve that state of affairs?

Of course, this has not affected domestic matters as the separate regional government run their own affairs and have done for several years. The question, I suppose, is how will Wallonia manage without government jobs and hand-outs?

Dan Bilefsky of the International Herald Tribune sees light on the horizon, though he may not consider it to be that. Actually, one does have to wonder about the political acumen of a journalist who starts his article thus:

This 177-year-old nation came a step closer Tuesday to averting breakup after its squabbling linguistic communities managed to agree on the one issue that increasingly unites them: fear of immigrants.

By and large one would question the idea that Belgium is a nation. The people who question it most are the citizens of that country, known colloquially as Belgians. Nor am I terribly impressed by the fact that those who make up this “nation” are described as “squabbling linguistic communities”. Mr Bilefsky might like to think less about his own superiority and find out more about the country he is writing about, even if it is only Belgium. He might like to know that Flanders is Flemish-speaking, not Dutch-speaking. They are close but not the same. (No, he is not American but one of ours.)

What is this political idea that has united the squabbling politicos? Apparently, they all agree on the need for tougher immigration rules, though, we suspect that the reasons might be different for the Flamands and the Walloons.

Despite this agreement, political analysts stressed that the crisis was far from over with the important issue of how to grant more autonomy to Flanders and Wallonia still hanging in the balance. They underlined, however, that the deal illustrated how immigration had become a unifying issue in a country where the prime minister-in-waiting recently publicly fumbled the words of the national anthem and where the unifying force for Belgians of all linguistic stripes is a love of the country's 400 kinds of beer.

"A toughening stance on immigration has overtaken politics in Belgium and made immigration a swing issue, and we are seeing this across Europe," said Pierre Blaise, secretary general of Crisp, a sociopolitical research organization in Brussels. "It is not that Belgians are intolerant in general,
but rather that the radicalization of the right has pushed mainstream parties to adopt a tougher approach when it comes to immigration and attitudes toward Islam in particular."

That last statement raises some interesting points about problems that Belgium has faced recently (see our repeated postings about the banned demonstration in Brussels on 9/11) but we would argue that it is not the radicalization of the right but the popularity of their ideas that “pushed mainstream parties to adopt a tougher approach”. Could the socialist mayor of Brussels have overplayed his hand?

Under the agreement, migrants from outside the European Union will be able to come to fill jobs only if there are not enough EU candidates. The parties agreed to stricter rules for immigrants who want to join family members in Belgium, including proof that they have sufficient income. The accord also would reserve Belgian citizenship to those who have spent five years uninterrupted in the country and who speak one of Belgium's three official languages - French, Dutch or German.

This agreement, though it seems to raise Mr Bilefsky’s hackles, does not sound all that tough. It is, as he points out, in line with a number of other countries, specifically Switzerland, which, not being part of the EU, can pass its own laws on all matters.

An increasingly strident stance toward immigration has been seen across Europe, where a get-tough approach to immigrants has been winning votes. In Switzerland, where voters go to the polls in national elections on Oct. 21, the Swiss People's Party, the most powerful party in Parliament, has in recent days been distributing posters showing three white sheep standing in the Swiss flag, as one of them kicks a single black sheep away. The implicit message: Foreigners are not welcome in one of the world's oldest democracies.

It is worth noting that in Switzerland it is not a fringe right-wing party that is advocating the tough stance but a main-stream one that is “the most powerful party in Parliament”, though the Swiss Parliament is less powerful than many others because of the country being a confederacy.

It is, of course, possible that even politicians have realized that their voters are tired of the sort of clever-dick argument that Mr Bilefsky is indulging in. Being the world’s oldest democracy has nothing to do with welcoming foreigners, particularly those that do not accept the rules of that oldest democracy. I think we may assume that Swiss People’s Party has no particular objections to the large international business community of Zürich or Geneva or to the various British shooting clubs that now have to practice in Switzerland because of our own insane gun laws (that have been so spectacularly successful in curbing gun crime).

The other possibility is that the Swiss do not take kindly to the UN interfering in their election and their political parties. After all, they are the oldest democracy and the UN cannot be said to be a democracy of any kind. And perhaps, just perhaps, they are not happy about the violence that has been developing in their peaceful society on both sides of the divide.

A hundred days and counting…

Considering how many British journalists there are in Brussels, you would think that the political crisis in that benighted country might get a little more attention.

But, in the wake of Booker last week, the Observer has picked up that there is something amiss.

In an a piece headed, "Belgium divided as Flanders pushes for a messy divorce", Alex Duval Smith heads off to Rhode Saint Genese in Flanders – nine miles south of Brussels - to interview the mayor Myriam Delacroix-Rolin, in anticipation of the coming Tuesday when Belgium marks its first 100 days without a government.

Smith suggests that the Belgians, and the rest of us, will have to get used to it and asks how will the divorce of Flanders and Wallonia be consummated, and what will become of Brussels, home to the EU and Nato? More worryingly, he writes, the demise of Belgium - a sticking plaster over the fault line between Europe's Protestant north and Catholic south - could make Europe a more dangerous place.

Delacroix-Rolin speaks of a linguistic divide, with the Flemish-speakers gradually colonising her village and dominating local politics and administration, driving out the French-speaking Wallonians. "One way or another", she says, "your route is barred unless you have Dutch language diplomas."

Meanwhile, the agency AFP is reporting that Albert II, King of the Belgians, has stepped up efforts for a solution, meeting Belgium's political heavyweights in a series of talks at his Belvedere residence. Crucially, though, he is excluding the Vlaams Belang, the Flemish-based party which is the main driver of secession.

Thus, however much the "bigwigs" talk, the Flemish community - which accounts for 60 percent of Belgium's 10.5 million people – is not giving ground and the French-speaking Wallonian are not prepared to accept total Flemish dominance in order to save the federal government.

Even AFP admits, therefore, that what was once just hypothetical - talk of Belgium falling apart - is now on everyone's lips. But what no-one seems to be confronting is the issue raised last week by Booker that, without a government, Belgium cannot sign the new constitutional reform treaty – due to be presented in December. And there is no one currently who believes that the constitutional crisis will be solved by then.

We live in interesting times.

COMMENT THREAD

Total stupidity

As it happens I am not going to write about the Conservative Party though I cannot help wondering about the political strategy there. First the Boy-King makes a great hullabaloo of all the policy commissions that are going to produce various ideas though while he did not simply use papers and ideas already discussed by existing think-tanks remains a mystery.

Then the commissions produce their reports and send them to the Leader and the Shadow Cabinet who are all given the chance to make comments and to prevent the publication of any really silly notions.

Then the reports are either leaked or pre-empted by empty blather as in the case of the education one. Then the reports are published and about half of them produce a public outcry, forcing the Boy-King to retract, back-pedal and pretend that none of this is of the slightest importance. So why were those reports not vetted a little more carefully?

Even this, however, pales into insignificance when compared with the stupidity of the Socialist Mayor of Brussels, Freddy Thielemans and his colleagues. The man’s lack of brains clearly equals his lack of political honesty.

Let us recall that this is the man who demanded champagne at a cocktail party in France to celebrate the death of Pope John Paul II. While this can be interpreted as a mere anti-Christian religion statement (I bet he won’t be ordering champagne on the anniversary of the Prophet Mohammed’s death), I think there is more to it than that.

However anti-Christian or anti-Catholic one is, except for complete boneheaded stupidity, there is no reason to suppose that the Church will not survive the death of one, rather aged Pope. But John Paul II was something else as well. He was one of those who played a crucial part in the defeat of Communism and the likes of Freddy Thielemans are not likely to forgive him that.

As we know, the brouhaha about the banned demo and the violence yesterday on the streets and squares of Brussels were started by M Thielemans banning the anti-Islamization of Europe demonstration that had expected to have about 20,000 attendees, all of whom had undertaken to behave peacefully and obey the law.

He did not ban the demo because there were fears that neo-Nazis might take advantage of it; he banned it because he thought it might upset some people, namely Muslims who might very well vote for him and his party. Not that he put it that way.

In any case the threat of neo-Nazis taking part is spurious. The organizers of a demonstration undertake to keep control of their followers and to ensure that they stay within certain parameters. If they fail to do so, they can be punished but not pre-empted.

We updated regularly about the subsequent events with a posting yesterday about the rather truncated demonstration. Unless Thielemans does want to push forward the break-up of Belgium (not, I should have thought, a particularly sensible idea, given who pays the bulk of the tax) he has achieved the opposite of what he wanted.

Had the demonstration gone ahead few people would have paid attention unless the numbers had grown into a million or more with counter-demonstrators and fights with police having to separate the various groups.

As it is, the story made news all over the world with emphasis on police brutality and Walloon nastiness and arrogance. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal a week or so ago.

American blogs picked it up. Here is Michelle’s posting together with links to other blogs. And of course there are the pictures and videos on Brussels Journal [warning: some of them are quite unpleasant] and England Expects. There may be other reports I have missed and several links have already been put up by our readers on the forum.

Clearly, the media in Belgium is covering the events extensively and in some detail. The preponderance of French-speaking police officers targeting Vlaams Belang members has not been missed. Whatever pain these people have experienced – and some of that looks very painful not to mention what we cannot see inside the vans – the leaders of Vlaams Belang can congratulate themselves on the stupidity of their enemy.

Franco Frattini, the Justice, Freedom and Security Commissar has tut-tutted about the ban, saying that no demonstration should be banned unless it is likely to be violent or neo-Nazi. Presumably, supporters of any other despicable and murderous regime are all right with the Commissar.

Some of the East Europeans are joining in the fight. In the words of Al Jolson: "You ain't seen nothing yet".

COMMENT THREAD

That demo

It seems that the demo in Brussels is going ahead, though with considerably smaller numbers than predicted back in the days it was thought that the event would be legitimate.

AP reports in the International Herald Tribune that about 200 people converged on two squares in the EU area of Brussels (this is the bit that will be patrolled by the international BFOR (Brussels Force) when the Kingdom of Belgium splits into various component parts.

The 200, according to this story, faced about 100 police, heavily armed and protected, backed up by helicopters and water canons.

Reuters does not differ greatly but mentions that two leaders of Vlaams Belang were arrested, as the photographs show.

The most detailed account comes from Brussels Journal. It is a slightly round-about sort of account in the first place, as it comes from Gates of Vienna, with Baron Bodissey getting telephonic reports from people on the scene.

This story gives 500 as the figure for the demonstrators and other reports say (we, too, have telephonic communications) say that there were at least 300 police.

The story remains muddled as is normal with events of this kind but it seems reasonable to assume that Vlaams Belang members and leaders were targeted by the police and not in a particularly pleasant fashion. If they want to make that party even more popular, they are, of course, welcome to do so.

COMMENT THREAD

Belgium again

Somewhat belatedly, as one of our forum members has pointed out, the MSM has woken up to the fact that not all is well in the Kingdom of the Belgians, soon, possibly, to become several kingdoms and republics.

In his latest posting Paul Belien, the undoubted expert on the subject, suggests that the immediate break-up of the country may well be followed by further breaks and splinterings with parts of Wallonia possibly rejoining Germany or Luxembourg.

That all sounds very satisfactory to me. I happen to be rather fond of the Duchy of Burgundy and the superlative art it produced. Could that be restored, do you think? After all, the Burgundians never really wanted to be part of France and the Dukes of Burgundy also managed to rule the Low Countries for some time. In fact, the resurrection of the Duchy of Burgundy would really solve everybody’s problem. I imagine there are descendants of both the Valois and the Habsburg Dukes around the place.

There is, however, another Belgian story (what one might call an embarrass de richesses rather than the Burgundian Trés Riches Heures – you have to keep up on this blog) that we have followed and the MSM seems not to have picked up on. That is the story of the non-demonstration that was due to take place tomorrow, on the anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

When we last reported, the demonstration had been banned by the Socialist Mayor of Brussels, Freddy Thielemann, the ban had been upheld by the Council of State and another appeal was lodged with a civil court.

On Friday Brussels Journal reported that

Judge Simon Cardon de Lichtbuer of the Brussels civil court ruled that he does not have the competence to overrule the mayor of Brussels’ banning of an anti-Islamization demonstration planned for next Tuesday, September 11. Consequently, the demonstration remains illegal.

The posting tells the usual sad tale of organizers falling out among themselves and accusing each other of dark deeds and right-wing sympathies with the German Dr Udo Ulfkotte getting particularly hysterical. Just how old is this guy if his “parents and grandparents were responsible for the holocaust” and, anyway, what has that to do with freedom of speech and freedom of assembly? But then, he also seems to believe that Israel fomented the riots in the French banlieux last year. I wonder where the demo organizers found him.

So, unusually, all eyes on Belgium tomorrow.

COMMENT THREAD

The news from Belgium

There has not been so much excitement since those three galloped to bring the good news from Ghent to Aix. (No, as it happens, nobody knows what the news was and why it was good. One of Browning's little jokes, I am afraid.)

First that demo, whose non-progress we have followed. The last news we reported was that Udo Ulfkotte, a German citizen and one of the organizers of the demo, appealed against the mayoral decision not to allow the demonstration to take place. A few days ago Paul Belien reported that the Belgian Council of State rejected the appeal because, "Udo Ulfkotte cannot prove that his interests have been harmed by the mayor's ban".

Well, I suppose he cannot prove that he had been harmed in any physical sense but surely if freedom of speech and assembly is denied people are harmed in quite important psychological ways.

Paul Belien adds a caustic comment, as is his wont:

This verdict may sound nonsensical to non-Belgians, but in Belgium it is not considered harmful to have one’s political freedoms restricted. In Belgium it is also considered quite normal that the lawyer representing Mayor Thielemans before the CoS is Marc Uyttendaele. The latter is one of the most expensive lawyers in the country. He is also the husband of Laurette Onkelinx, the Belgian minister of Justice, who is responsible for appointing, promoting and suspending judges.

As it happens, Belgium is not the only corrupt country in Europe but let that pass.

Nothing daunted, Hugo Coveliers, the lawyer of the organizers of the pan-European anti-Islamization demonstration, is taking his appeal to another court.

Mr Coveliers has now decided to bring the case before a civil court. He is going to argue that the “subjective rights” of the organizers have been denied. If the court agrees with that argument there is a possibility that the organizers can claim damages from the Brussels mayor if he does not allow the demonstration to go ahead.

Mr Belien adds some interesting facts about the various personalities involved that should give all those who think our judges should be elected and, therefore, made into political animals, something to think about:

Mr Coveliers, a member of the Belgian Senate, was shocked at the CoS ruling. Freddy Thielemans, the Brussels mayor, is a Socialist. Judge Roger Stevens, the chairman of the three CoS judges who refused to overrule his ban, happens to be the co-author of a book with Johan Vande Lanotte, who until last June was the party leader of the Socialists. Judge Daniël Moons, one of the two other judges who ruled in the case, was appointed to the CoS in 1997 by the same Mr Van de Lanotte, who was Belgium's Vice Prime Minister at the time. The superior of the three judges, the recently appointed CoS president Marie-Rose Bracke, is the sister-in-law of former Socialist minister Luc Vanden Bossche and the aunt of Freya Van den Bossche, the current Belgian Budget Minister, also a Socialist.

And don’t tell me similar things would not happen here. Human nature is human nature, as Miss Marple is apt to point out. What distinguishes Anglospheric culture, mostly, from others is the understanding that institutions have to be put into place to safeguard judicial independnence. (Actually, there are many other distinctions as well but this one will do for the moment.)

It is not clear, at the moment, whether the demonstration will go ahead and, if so,under what conditions. But there are some fascinating comments on the posting.

Meanwhile, the constitutional crisis is trundling on as well, as described by the self-same Paul Belien, complicated, it would appear by the curious attitude to financial probity and, how shall I put it, rather exotic life-style of the now recalled Belgian ambassador to France.

Read the whole piece. Very funny. I particularly like the idea of the Belgian embassy in Paris being known as "la cage aux folles" and, of course, Ambassador Schmidt also having Marc Uyttendaele, husband of Laurette Onkelinx, the Belgian Minister of Justice. What a busy chap Maître Uyttendale is, to be sure.

Crisis in Belgium

According to Filip van Laenen on Brussels Journal, this one is an existential crisis and may well end up with Belgium falling apart. The King, he proclaims angrily, ought to be at his post and not having a holiday in the South of France, reluctantly coming back to accept the Prime Minister designate’s resignation.

Well, I am not a Belgian and the nuances of that country’s politics proabably escape me. But for the life of me I cannot see what difference it would make if King Albert II stayed “in the capital making sure he's available every single hour of the day in case the negotiator needs assistance”. Are there no telephones, mobiles or computers in the South of France?

The problem seems to be, as ever, that the two parts of Belgium, the French and the Flemish, cannot agree on division of power. To be quite precise, Flanders wants more regional power and that, indeed, can lead to the break-up of this rather curious country.

Mr Leterme, a Flemish politician, had been trying to form a government since mid July after the Christian Democrats and Liberals gained the most votes in the 10 June elections.

However, Flemish demands for more regional powers in areas such as justice and ransport fuelled fears among French-speaking politicians that Mr Leterme was interested in breaking up the country.

Past comments by Mr Leterme that Belgium is an "accident of history" and that the only things Belgians have in common are "the King, the football team, some beers" lent to this fear.For their part, Dutch speakers are keen to preserve their sense of identity and have been wary of francophone Belgians moving to the Flemish surroundings of Brussels, asking for local community rights.

The International Herald Tribune sums up the problems:

French-speaking politicians fear Flemish demands for greater regional control in areas such as employment, transport and justice could undermine Belgium as a federal state. They have made counter-demands for more rights for the Francophone minority living in Flemish areas. …

Central to the dispute in the government talks are the rights granted to the substantial French-speaking minority living in districts around Brussels which are officially in Dutch-speaking territory.

Flemish politicians want to break up a bilingual voting district to stop French-speaking parties running for elections in Flemish suburbs around the capital.

The Francophones say they will agree only if they get a strengthening of their language rights in more Flemish suburbs — such as being able to use French in dealings with their town halls. That is rejected by the Flemish.

Talks have been going on for five weeks and have now officially collapsed. Whether another potential government is being lined up in the background remains to be seen.

In the meantime, another Flemish separatist demonstration is being planned for this week-end, a moderately large one having taken place last week-end. Polls are being conducted on whether Flanders should claim independence or try to unite with the Netherlands.

All in all, another fine mess as the IGC gets going.

COMMENT THREAD

Belgium is not Europe

I do wish people, particularly well-meaning American commentators, such as Pamela Geller on Atlas Shrugs, would stop confusing Belgium with Europe. Belgium is but one country, not a particularly old one, created largely by the then British Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, in 1830.

There is some truth to Paul Belien's thesis that Belgium is the modely for the European Union but only some. There are other parallels, such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. (Discuss.) In any case, as Belien himself says on Brussels Journal, Belgium is well on the road to collapse, while the EU, sadly is not.

My point is that when bad things happen in Belgium, particularly in Brussels under the rule of its socialist Mayor, Freddy Thielemans (and, let's face it, we in London know what it is like to have a socialist Mayor), it is a Belgian problem, though obviously we write about it on this blog. It is not a problem for the whole of Europe. We are not playing "If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium".

We have written about the banning of the anti-Sharia demonstration, planned for 9/11 in Brussels, about the appeal against the ban, and about a "truther" demo that is being allowed.

Now Brussels Journal tells us about another interesting development. It seems that the counter-demonstration agains the banned anti-Sharia demonstration is going ahead.

The Arab-European League (AEL), a pro-Hezbollah organization of Arab immigrants in Belgium and the Netherlands, is rallying its members to march in Brussels on 11 September “against Islamophobia and racism in Europe.” The AEL demonstration is a response to the request by the Danish-British-German organization Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) for permission to demonstrate on 9/11 in front of the European Union’s buildings in Brussels against the introduction of Sharia laws in Europe.

Paul Belien, the author of the piece, gives some helpful information about the Arab-European League and its founder.

Atlas Shrugged reminds us, as if we needed reminding, of the last time London saw a peaceful anti-Islamophobia demonstration. For all of that, Belgium's problems are hers and hers alone.

This is getting worse and worse

All one can do is link to Paul Belien's posting on Brussels Journal. It seems that Brussels Mayor Freddy Thielemans has surpassed himself. Having banned the anti-Sharia demonstration planned for September 11, he has allowed a "9/11 truther" demo, organized by something called "United for Truth" (no, I will not link to it by Paul Belien rather generously does) on 9/9. The significance of that date escapes me but, perhaps, they think that it was on September 9 that Karl Rove organized his various dastardly deeds.

Readers of this blog have probably recognized that both its authors are supporters of the war against terror and the war in Iraq though we do think it would be a good idea if the British prosecuted it a little more sensibly and efficiently. (And yes, since you ask, the surge is working as anyone can find out if they read the reports published even in such anti-war media outlets as the New York Times and Der Spiegel.

For all of that, we do not think that demonstrations against he war should be banned even if they do tend to be organized in Britain by the Socialist Worker group. Even a "truther" demo should be allowed as long as the participants behave themselves. After all if lunatics want to parade their lunacy, why not let them do so.

One cannot help wondering about Mayor Thielemans's devotion to free speech and freedom of assembly in this particular case.

Update on that demo

Brussels Journal gives an update on the anti-Islamisation demonstration scheduled for 9/11 in Brussels and banned by the Socialist Mayor of that fair city.

It seems that

Hugo Coveliers, a member of the Belgian Senate, will initiate an appeal procedure on Ulfkotte’s behalf against the mayor’s decision before the Council of State, Belgium’s highest administrative court. The CoS will have to issue its verdict before 11 September. According to Senator Coveliers it is “80% certain” that the CoS will overrule the mayor’s ban and allow the demonstration to go ahead.

There is still that 20 per cent.