Belgium has a new government, sworn in at the Royal
Palace on Saturday. It represents, in any way, a big shake-up of much that
was common sense up to now in Belgian politics. But with some luck – and
dependant on the economic evolution of Europe and in Belgium – it could become a
major step towards stabilizing a country that only three years ago looked
poised for a break-up.
Charles Michel, the leader of the
French-speaking liberals, is the new prime minister of Belgium and at 38 the
youngest one since 1832. He leads a coalition of three Flemish parties – the
Flemish nationalist NVA, the Christian democratic CDV, and the liberal VLD –
and only one French-speaking, his own, the MR. The latter commands only 20 out
of the 63 deputies in the Lower House who speak French. But the coalition has
85 of the 150 seats, and the constitution does not prescribe to have a majority in each language group of the
country. Indeed, its only rule is that ‘each decision shall be taken by a
majority of the votes’.
At the same time
Mr. Michels party has seven ministers in a government of fourteen. This is because of
the rules that over the last fourty years and throughout a process of institutional
decentralisation have been introduced to protect the (French-speaking) minority
of Belgium. One of these rules is that the council of ministers has to have as
much French-speaking ministers as Dutch-speaking. Alas, a similar rule has
never been introduced for the representation of women who, in the new cabinet, have
only three ministers.
In many ways
this is quite a peculiar government. Ruling without a majority of seats in one
community has been done before, but usually with only one or two seats short of
that majority. Now the gap is huge. Another big novelty is that for the first
time the political representation in the federal government is for one
(French-speaking) part of the country completely different of the
representation in the regional government: MR versus the coalition of Christian
democrats (CDH) and socialists (PS). This offers a clear-cut choice of two
policies – not necessarily left versus right – but could also lead to much
bickering, obstruction policies and institutional deadlock.
Quite peculiar,
although not entirely new, is that the prime minister is not the leader of the
biggest coalition partner. In this case – and by far – this would have been the
Flemish nationalist party, with its leader Bart De Wever. But Mr. De Wever has
explained why he prefers to stay as mayor of Antwerp, Flanders biggest city:
because it was unthinkable for the MR, already vulnerable as the only
French-speaking party, to accept the leadership of the same Flemish
nationalists that were so strongly demonised by all French-speaking parties
before the elections of last May.
It is for the same reason that it was
as much necessary that the Flemish nationalists abandoned their institutional
agenda – at least for the next five years – to give priority to their centre-right
socio-economic aims, which are quite similar to that of the liberals. It is
indeed the frustration of the large centre-right electorate in Flanders about
twenty-five years of uninterrupted presence of the socialists in all
governments, that ballooned the score of the nationalists since the outbreak of
the economic crisis in 2008.
But all this is
strong stuff. Here are the Flemish nationalists, still having separatism and an
independent Flanders as their ultimate goal, showing extreme restraint to spare
their French-speaking coalition partner and to bring some order – at least
according to them – to the Belgian household. That paradox could be explained
by the strategy of Mr. De Wever, keen on consolidating the huge gains his party
made in the last few years. Nothing better for that than showing that he and his
party are extremely reasonable people, so it seems. That does not necessarily
mean that the separatist goal is abandoned, only that – like with all
separatist parties in Europe, and before them with the Parti Quebecois in
Canada – you put it solely on the agenda when you have a reasonable chance of
succeeding.
The strategy of
Mr. De Wever is in this moment probably aimed at the Flemish Christian
democrats, whom he holds in an almost suffocating embrace. He already captured
a large part of the former right wing electorate of this party – as he did with
the Flemish liberals – but now wants definitely to replace CDV as the major and
centre ground party in Flanders.
The CDV is not
really happy in the coalition, because his left wing – rooted in the Christian (and biggest) trade
union in Belgium – does not like the budget cuts and reforms proposed. But it
still hopes, by luring the nationalists into government responsibilities, to
destroy their populist image and the electoral free-ride they enjoyed. The
relation between these two will be worth to watch closely the next years.
The
French-speaking liberals of Mr. Michel also take a huge risk with this coalition.
Not for nothing is was first christened as the ‘kamikaze’-coalition by the
French-speaking press. Applying a centre-right policy in a region – Wallonia
certainly – that has always voted for left-wing policies, besides from a
pronounced minority position in your own language group, looks indeed as quite
a mission impossible.
But two elements
could turn this improbability into a trump card. The first is the electoral
victory of the MR in the last elections. Mr. Michel and his political friends are more
and more convinced that Wallonia is on its way to genuine economic recovery and
development, and that it is only a
matter of time before the eternal left-wing majority there, already crumbling by each new
election, will finally disappear.
The second
element are the constitutional protections for the linguistic minority in Belgium,
such as the parity in the number of ministers, already mentioned. By being
alone and in the minority, the MR is also protected against any demands for
institutional change, as these, according to the constitution, require a
majority in every language group. And again it was precisely their
vulnerability towards French-speaking public opinion that made the MR obtain
the prime ministership.
So this new coalition,
due to its imbalance, has become a government where the coalition partners have
to take into account the aspirations and aims of their partner across the
language border more than ever before in the last four decades since devolution
was started. It shall have to take the moral ground from a Belgian perspective,
and to be quite more than the diplomatic conference between two communities it
usually was up to now.
That is indeed
strong stuff for the Flemish nationalists on board. It could in the best of all
scenario’s even lure them into becoming a stabilizing element of the Belgian
establishment instead of the despised outsider they were – and were treated as
– for almost a century now. Or will they, if that is the evolution, prefer to
break up a good government in due time instead?
Strangely enough, the main opposition party – and the
electoral mirror of the Flemish nationalists in the last electoral campaigns
wherein they demonised and pushed up each other – is in the same situation. The
Parti Socialiste – still the biggest party in Wallonia and Brussels – could
indeed start to attack the party of Mr. Michel by claiming that it is constantly
betraying the French-speaking citizens in this country, in a clearly
undemocratic way.
But then it
would have to pick up the cause of regionalism again, and in the end even
separatism. It would do exactly what it had reproached – not without reason -
to the Flemish nationalists. With a big difference: if the PS in the last
decades was always an advocate of keeping Belgium together, this was because
it wanted to preserve a unified social security, for which the contributions of
the economically stronger Flanders were essential to keep it generous. In other
words, by going for an opposition based on nationalists sentiments in the
French-speaking part of Belgium, the PS could cut the branch on which it sits.
So it is the
liberals who in the end have most achieved their strategic goals in the new government:
both a centre-right economic policy, and a necessity to think far more than ever
before in terms of a general Belgian interest instead of regional feelings. How
fragile this new and surprising balance is, and how long it will last remains of
course to be seen.
It will surely
also depend on the economic evolution of Europe: if that gets better, stability inside Belgium
will ensue. If it continues to be bad or get worse, new breaches will open, as
both Schotland has shown and Catalonia certainly will show. It is also a fact
that the economic differences between Flanders and Wallonia are slowly
diminishing, whereby the deeper foundation for the antagonism is melting away.
With all this in mind this seems a
good moment to put an end – provisional or definite - to this blog, that was
opened with the big struggle of nationalities inside Belgium after the
elections now seven years ago. The tables have shifted, and normalcy seems to
return. At least for the moment.
