Despite the usual complexity of the kingdom, everything seemed clear on the evening of the Belgian legislative elections, June 9. Flanders, the main region of the country, had voted very right-wing, but the nationalists of the Neo-Flemish Alliance (N-VA) had succeeded in their challenge of beating the xenophobic extreme right (the Vlaams Belang) and, thus, prevent the rise to power.
The new coalition was also supposed to get the Belgian state out of debt – 600 billion euros –, correct the public deficit – 4.4% of gross domestic product this year – and tackle some thorny issues, such as reform pensions, violence linked to drug trafficking or the dilapidation of the judicial system. All with, for a time at least, the consent of an opinion noting that its French, German and Dutch neighbors are navigating in complete uncertainty and witnessing the progression of populist forces still confined, in Belgium, to the margins of the chessboard .
Obviously, the transformation of a Flemish nationalist, leader of a separatist party, into a possible head of a federal government – the word “national” is definitely no longer used in the country of King Philippe – could be surprising. Bart De Wever, mayor of Antwerp, however, managed to instill the idea that he had abandoned his plans to split the state, supported at the time by the idea that the “two democracies” Belgians – the Flemish and the French-speaking – would be definitively irreconcilable.
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Its independence demands therefore seemed destined to join the “community fridge”, which contains all the files opposing the two large communities of the kingdom. Certain themes have long been frozen there (the federalization of social security, the powers of the king, etc.), others serve as weapons of dissuasion (the Flemish over-representation in the Brussels-Capital region, intended to compensate for parity linguistics within the federal government).
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Belgium
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