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Volgend artikel van mijn hand verscheen gisteren op de website globalspinner.com. Aan mij werd gevraagd om mijn licht te laten werpen op de Belgische politieke situatie, niettemin rekening houdend met de volgende voorwaarden: het kort en simpel houden. Dat is dan ook wat ik trachten te doen heb. Reacties zijn welkom!
- Belgium: The country that will not split
Some say that Belgium is something like a mini Europe: different languages and cultures are living together peacefully. That’s true. When there are political problems, just like in the European Union, they are not about language or culture, but about welfare. About money.
Since the foundation of Belgium in 1830, the country evolved from a unitary democracy to two regional democracies that have to be united after elections. More and more, this last task appears to be very hard. After a heavy election campaign in the north (Flanders), and an even heavier one in the south (Wallonia), often the hardliners can cheer. However, the day after the winners glow of success makes space for a serious hangover: government negociations between parties with truly opposing programmes.
Since june 2010, there are talks between seven parties. Yes, S-E-V-E-N: the northern and southern christian-democrats, socialists and greens, together with the Flemish nationalists. Their first goal: to restructure the Belgian state. The questions at hand are clear: 1. Which competences should we assign to what political level? 2. And in what way are we financing this structure?
Of course the answers to these questions are complex and could have a major impact on the political responsibilities of all Belgian political levels. Some parties in Wallonia are trying to avoid these answers by argueing that for them it is not necessary to raise these questions. To put it concretely: they don’t want a (significant) reform of the state. On the other hand you have the Flemish nationalists (N-VA), which are now the biggest political force in Belgium. N-VA’s long term goal is an independent Flanders, member of the EU. But for now, they accept that evolution and not revolution is the way to go. This means that they are at the negociation table, where they seek more regional autonomy and financial responsiblity.
Not only N-VA but all Flemish parties want a significant reform of the state structure. Not because they are all nationalists, but because they believe that this will enable more efficient and effective policies, in order to keep our welfare system alive. An example: Wallonia tries to fight their quite high youth unemployment figures, as where Flanders can’t keep elderly people in their jobs. How can one solve these totally different problems with one, federal policy? Impossible. Labor market policy should be reshuffled from the federal to the regional level.
When answering the second question, about financing the whole structure, the Flemish parties say that they by no means want to cut solidarity; they just want that every region is to a certain extent responsible for its own income and expenses, and that transfers are transparant. Now a region gets less money from the federal state when there are more people working and vice versa. This doesn’t give an incentive to a more poor region to create jobs and get people working. These kind of mechanisms are by a lot of people not viewed as solidarity, but as exploitation.
This is not the first time that Belgium is trying to reorganise itself. And always there were big political fights. Always it took a serious time. But always the Belgian political class found a solution. The Belgian case was so successful that even Israeli representatives came to Brussels to check out how they were making these complex compromises. (Seems like they didn’t had all the necessary answers to solve the Israel-Palestine issue, but that’s another thing).
To paraphrase Bismarck: a Belgian compromise is like a sausage; you don’t want to know how it is made. Unfortunately we know how they were made. First they minced a lot of competences, so the regions got a little bit autonomy, without having the full responsibility. Then they added a lot of money that was assigned to, for instance, the Wallonian education department. After mixing, you find a Belgian compromise!
Let the second step of that cooking process now be the problem: we’re running out of money! Our state debt is close to 100% of our GDP, employment figures are average and the costs of our ageing population will rise steeply the next decades. And oh, we bailed out some big banks, so our budget is in deficit.
All considerations made above just show that Belgium finds itself in a complex political situation. Whereas financial markets are starting to target the country of waffles and beer more and more, a solution is needed. And Belgium, like always, will get a solution. What government will be formed after accepting what compromise and existing out of how many and what parties? All these questions are still unanswered. Only two things are sure: Belgium will not split, nor be at war.
*Jefrey Van der Straeten is the International Officer of the L² (Flanders, Belgium) and was awarded a Master degree in Political Science by the University of Ghent.
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