Belgium has a government!

[Sheilbh]

Well, almost.

Belgium's government to be sworn in after 541 days

By RAF CASERT, Associated Press – 1 hour ago

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgium's soon-to-be prime minister set up a slimmed-down coalition Monday, in one of the final steps before his team formally ends the record 541 days the country has gone without a government.

The swearing-in on Tuesday will be a long-awaited relief to the entire nation of 6.5 million Dutch speakers and 4.5 million French speakers who long ago grew frustrated with the deadlock between politicians over linguistic differences.

One radio presenter finally shaved off the beard he has grown for almost a year to protest the drawn-out coalition negotiations, an unofficial world record.

"I won't do it again, never again," Koen Fillet said after he was soaped, shaved and splashed with after-shave in a show webcast live.

Elio Di Rupo will be the first French-speaking prime minister in almost 40 years. Outgoing Vice Premier Laurette Onkelinx said the grand coalition of Socialists, Christian Democrats and Liberals, each split in Dutch- and French-speaking parties, will include only 13 full ministers.

The final stretch was drawn-out, in keeping with entire process: An all-night negotiating session to decide which party would claim what post ended Monday afternoon.

Di Rupo is to visit King Albert II late Monday and gather his new ministerial team for the swearing in ceremony.

At that point, the government has a lot of catching up to do, especially when it comes to the economy.

Just ten days ago the credit rating of Belgium was downgraded, when high debt caught up with extended indecision on the government makeup. One day later, Di Rupo and his partners had agreed on a budget meant to meet the demands of the European Union and calm nervous markets.

The EU welcomed the breakthrough and said EU officials would soon review the budget text to see if it meets the recommendations of fiscal rigor and increased competitiveness.

Di Rupo said that next year's budget will have a deficit of 2.8 percent of GDP to remain within the EU target. He called the euro11.3 billion ($14.95 billion) in austerity measures a step toward assuring a balanced budget in 2015 and the toughest measures taken by the nation in some 70 years.

Belgium has had only a caretaker government since June 13, 2010, as a series of negotiators tried and failed to bridge the divide between the country's linguistic groups.

I can't believe any country's okay with a PM who wears bowties

[HVC]

with the hair and bowtie dude looks like ventriloquist dummy.

[Razgovory]

He kinda looks like Patrick Troughton, the second Doctor.

[Valmy]

If you speak both French and Dutch how do you know which version of each party to vote for?

Also this is their first French speaking HoG in 40 years?  If the Flems have dominated the government for so long why are they so whiny?

[Habbaku]

Tragic news. 

[Ed Anger]

He kinda looks like Patrick Troughton, the second Doctor.

Or the guy that wears the question mark suit on the infomercials.

[Razgovory]

He kinda looks like Patrick Troughton, the second Doctor.

Or the guy that wears the question mark suit on the infomercials.

Haven't seen him for a while.  Maybe someone finally killed that annoying bastard.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

If you speak both French and Dutch how do you know which version of each party to vote for?

Also this is their first French speaking HoG in 40 years?  If the Flems have dominated the government for so long why are they so whiny?

cause we haven't dominated government.
Number of ministers is an issue, but doesn't equal domination as the constitution makes it impossible for the majority to do anything (anything at all) where the minority (frenchies) think their interests are being damaged. In which case they can invoke 5 or 6 different procedures  to delay (60 days each, or it could be 90) the impending decision. If by then a "compromise" (generally meaning status quo -or something closeby like a further extension of francophone rights, as wanted by the francophones) isn't reached then an additional "Alarmbell" can be invoked (another 30 days). Generally that means the government falls (though it doesn't have to in reallity).

Anyways, it's because of those shenanigans that the previous government fell: A flemish proposal to get rid of a discrimination (as decided several times by the contitutional court, the famous and still not solved BHV: one discrimination has been rplaced by another) was made somewhere in 2007 or 2008, blocked by the Francophone Community, the Walloon Region, The Germanophone community (though they don't even border flanders), and at least 1 of the Brussels institutions (I think the Cocof). In the end all was exhausted, except the "alarmbell" which was invoked at the same moment the government fell.

To mke it clear: this can be repeated for any and all things the francophones don't agree with, even if the issue at hand doesn't have any implications for Brussels or Wallonia.

Regarding the question on which party to vote:
If you live in Flanders you can only vote on flemish parties, except if your francophone living in the 6 communities with languagefacilities in BHV: they can also vote for francophone parties that partake in the elections in Brussel.
If you live in Wallonia you can only vote for francophone parties, if you happen to be a dutchspeaking living in the communities with languagefacilities in Brabant-Wallon you're out of luck: no special rights for you like your francophone counterparts 10 km away.
If you live in Brussel you can chose
If you live in the german-speaking part of Belgium you vote on walloon parties, though I think there are a few parties specific for the region.
Belgium does not have national parties, not since the unitarian parties of significance were split in the respective linguistic parts, starting in the early 70s and usually because of events or changes in mentality that showed that the flemish were sick of being second-tier citizens.
As an aside: Belgium does also not have a national broadcaster. that too has been split.

As it is: lets hope this government goes the same way as the one led by Leburton (last francophone PM), namely a complete and utter failure. with elections in 2012.

[Sheilbh]

God I hate Belgium

On the other hand the real country itself is actually pretty pleasant.  It's like the anti-Switzerland.

[Zanza]

Do you actually have any national institutions left apart from your football league and the king?

[DGuller]

Hard to believe that a country that has triumphed over Congo so convincingly is reduced to this. 

[Viking]

God I hate Belgium

On the other hand the real country itself is actually pretty pleasant.  It's like the anti-Switzerland.

The country is really two countries in need of a divorce...

Dividing it into The Republic of Flanders in Antwerp, Kingdom of Wallonia in Liege and an autonomous District of Monnetia in Brussels nominally part of the Republic of Flanders but with sovreignty enforced by the EU would make it really really nice. It's a country normally celebrated for beer, food, chocolate, comic books and saxophones. I can't fathom how a country famous for such wonderful things is known primarily for pedophile secret societies, racism and gridlock.

[Sheilbh]

Guardian article:

Eurozone crisis forces Belgium to finally form a government

Eurozone crisis forces Belgian politicians to act and form a coalition with French-speaking Elio Di Rupo at the helm

Students tried stripping to their underwear and handing out free chips; giant lions and roosters snogged in the street; the country's leading actor ordered all men to go on shaving strike; and a woman senator said politicians' wives should deny them sex.

But in the end, it took a looming financial meltdown in the eurozone to force Belgium's absurdly divided and squabbling political class to form a government.

After breaking the modern-day world record for failing to form a government – making war-torn Iraq look like amateurs – Belgium has surmounted the linguistic and cultural stand-off that threatened to wipe it from the map, and agreed to form a coalition in the name of sorting out its finances.

After 535 days without a proper leader – the country has been led by a transitional caretaker government – Belgian officials said there was now likely to be a coalition cabinet in place next week.

But the crisis has left divisions more deeply entrenched than ever between the rich, Dutch-speaking north and poorer, French-speaking south, with melting pot Brussels marooned in the middle.

More than 80 rounds of negotiations came to nothing but in the end Belgian politicians had no choice after Standard & Poor's downgraded its credit rating and borrowing stood as high as the country's GDP, with its banking sector seriously shaken.

Yet the birthplace of René Magritte, and spiritual home of surrealism, might not yet have finished with the absurd political crisis. The 180-year-old country once described as an accident of history might have averted a split, but the linguistic iron curtain remains in place.

During the year-and-a-half-long crisis, relentless stereotyping was in abundance, deepening the divide, with Flemings, who make up 60% of the 10.5 million population, described as a bunch of tetchy, right-wing nationalist extremists, and Francophones as work-shy scroungers.

A tentative coalition of six parties of very different political hues now faces the minefield of putting in place severe austerity measures, tax changes and cuts, which are bound to spark social unrest, with strikes already planned on the streets of Brussels.

No easier task is the plan to reform the very essence of the way politics in divided Belgium are run.

Conspicuously absent from the coalition is Belgium's biggest single political party, the right-wing, separatist Flemish N-VA, led by Bart De Wever, whose electoral triumph last year helped cement the deadlock. His major political platform was to dissolve Belgium and split Flanders from French-speaking Wallonia. This hasn't happened and De Wever is now shouting from the sidelines.

Meanwhile, the ruling coalition will be led by the colourful, bow-tie wearing and perpetually smiling figure, Elio Di Rupo. At 60, he will be Belgium's first French-speaking prime minister in 30 years, a rare centre-left voice in a European Union that has veered right, and one of few proudly gay world leaders. He's also the first Socialist to take the premiership in Belgium since 1974.

But he speaks poor Dutch. This is a serious problem in a country where language is so important and so fiercely protected that, in areas of Dutch-speaking Flanders, town council meetings can find their decisions annulled if anyone is heard to utter a word of French.

The biggest Flanders daily, Het Laatste Nieuws, has slammed Di Rupo's dire pronunciation and syntax. He has promised to improve. But the failing is not lost on the Flemish separatist De Wever, who said: "My Nigerian-origin cleaning lady who has been in Belgium for two years speaks better Dutch than Elio. In Brussels you can't sell a handbag without being bilingual, yet you can become prime minister without speaking proper Dutch."

Political observers said they believed the coalition federal government could hold, but that Belgium now faced major cuts and reforms ranging from pensions to taxes and unemployment benefits, which could upset unions and business leaders alike. The absurd political stalemate has also left its scars.

Pascal Delwit, professor in political science at the Free University of Brussels, said: "Belgium is the capital of surrealism, and this long political crisis was typically surrealist, accompanied by a kind of general calm among citizens. When there was a hung parliament in 2010 in the UK, after six days people were saying 'what's happening?'. Here it lasted more than 530 days, with no mass movement in the streets, a calm pragmatic population that accepted the surrealist elements."

But he said the divide between the two main linguistic communities – around 75,000 Belgians speak German – had deepened during the stalemate: "The crisis and insults have made it worse. The idea of Belgium breaking up and separating was repeated so much it became a more accepted idea. And we saw repeatedly how French-speakers see Dutch-speakers as arrogant proto-fascists and Francophones are seen as lazy people who refuse to work. Yet what we've now shown is that Dutch-speakers and French-speakers from left and right could agree on a difficult budget. It's as if Conservatives, Lib Dems and Labour formed a government together."

Pierre Vercauteren, politics professor at the University of Mons, called the new political consensus a "historic moment". "The conclusion of the political accord its a huge relief for Belgian people. But just because there is relief, that doesn't mean everyone is happy with the accord."

I do not understand this. 

A friend of mine grew up in Brussels and was English and went to an EU school.  So he spoke English and French.  As an eight year old he went into a shop in Flanders and was screamed at by the mad old lady running the shop for speaking French.  He's never quite forgiven the Flems (loves the Walloons).

[Razgovory]

If you speak both French and Dutch how do you know which version of each party to vote for?

Also this is their first French speaking HoG in 40 years?  If the Flems have dominated the government for so long why are they so whiny?

cause we haven't dominated government.
Number of ministers is an issue, but doesn't equal domination as the constitution makes it impossible for the majority to do anything (anything at all) where the minority (frenchies) think their interests are being damaged. In which case they can invoke 5 or 6 different procedures  to delay (60 days each, or it could be 90) the impending decision. If by then a "compromise" (generally meaning status quo -or something closeby like a further extension of francophone rights, as wanted by the francophones) isn't reached then an additional "Alarmbell" can be invoked (another 30 days). Generally that means the government falls (though it doesn't have to in reallity).

Anyways, it's because of those shenanigans that the previous government fell: A flemish proposal to get rid of a discrimination (as decided several times by the contitutional court, the famous and still not solved BHV: one discrimination has been rplaced by another) was made somewhere in 2007 or 2008, blocked by the Francophone Community, the Walloon Region, The Germanophone community (though they don't even border flanders), and at least 1 of the Brussels institutions (I think the Cocof). In the end all was exhausted, except the "alarmbell" which was invoked at the same moment the government fell.

To mke it clear: this can be repeated for any and all things the francophones don't agree with, even if the issue at hand doesn't have any implications for Brussels or Wallonia.

Regarding the question on which party to vote:
If you live in Flanders you can only vote on flemish parties, except if your francophone living in the 6 communities with languagefacilities in BHV: they can also vote for francophone parties that partake in the elections in Brussel.
If you live in Wallonia you can only vote for francophone parties, if you happen to be a dutchspeaking living in the communities with languagefacilities in Brabant-Wallon you're out of luck: no special rights for you like your francophone counterparts 10 km away.
If you live in Brussel you can chose
If you live in the german-speaking part of Belgium you vote on walloon parties, though I think there are a few parties specific for the region.
Belgium does not have national parties, not since the unitarian parties of significance were split in the respective linguistic parts, starting in the early 70s and usually because of events or changes in mentality that showed that the flemish were sick of being second-tier citizens.
As an aside: Belgium does also not have a national broadcaster. that too has been split.

As it is: lets hope this government goes the same way as the one led by Leburton (last francophone PM), namely a complete and utter failure. with elections in 2012.

Oh, God.  Not this again.

[Ed Anger]

Oh, God.  Not this again.

At least their chocolate is good.