Belgium Finally Set to End World's Longest Ever Political Limbo
Written by John Lichfield
September 16, 2011
September 16, 2011
After fifteen months with no elected government in Belgium, a compromise was set to be made. The political parties have found a way to guarantee the rights of French-speaking people who live in the officially Dutch-speaking suburbs of Brussels. The Flemish Prime Minister, Yves Leterme, announced retirement from Belgian politics to take a senior job at the OECD. This has made the push towards a compromise even more urgent. Also, international ratings agencies had been complaining about the lack of a government in Belgium and how this had caused them to gain a lot of debt caused the different groups to negotiate talks. Their negotiations had been about potentially creating a solution to the successive waves of devolution between Dutch and French-speaking groups. Their main issue discussed however was making Belgium a bilingual state although it is now considered a Dutch-speaking city.
This article was about how the two different ethnic groups living in Belgium had been fighting for over fifteen months over voting rights for French speakers in Brussels. I noticed that this is very similar to what other countries are going through where they have two different ethnic groups living in one country. Typically the groups tend to stay away from each other and alienate them. This is similar to what is happening in the capital city. Brussels is made up of a majority of Dutch speakers and a minority group of French speakers. The fact that this led to the government shutting down for fifteen months is disgraceful because it shouldn't have taken this long to come to a compromise, and it is hard to comprehend that two groups could be fighting this long over their different languages.
This article ties into the political life of Belgium because it tells about a time when their government shut down for a long period of time, longer than any other government had ever been shut down for. This led to the eight different political parties in Belgium coming together to make a compromise about giving political power to the minority group in the capital city of Brussels. When this occurred, their Prime Minister stepped down from power eventually could have forced an election that could have divided up the country even more. Coming to a compromise was not easy for this country to do with all of the different political views present, so hopefully the compromise they have found will work as they hope.
This article was about how the two different ethnic groups living in Belgium had been fighting for over fifteen months over voting rights for French speakers in Brussels. I noticed that this is very similar to what other countries are going through where they have two different ethnic groups living in one country. Typically the groups tend to stay away from each other and alienate them. This is similar to what is happening in the capital city. Brussels is made up of a majority of Dutch speakers and a minority group of French speakers. The fact that this led to the government shutting down for fifteen months is disgraceful because it shouldn't have taken this long to come to a compromise, and it is hard to comprehend that two groups could be fighting this long over their different languages.
This article ties into the political life of Belgium because it tells about a time when their government shut down for a long period of time, longer than any other government had ever been shut down for. This led to the eight different political parties in Belgium coming together to make a compromise about giving political power to the minority group in the capital city of Brussels. When this occurred, their Prime Minister stepped down from power eventually could have forced an election that could have divided up the country even more. Coming to a compromise was not easy for this country to do with all of the different political views present, so hopefully the compromise they have found will work as they hope.