France takes a condescending, affectionate approach to its small neighbour. The butt of jokes, Belgians are seen as slow-witted frites eaters with a creative genius that produced Art Nouveau, Hergé, the father of Tintin, and entertainers who move to France when they make it.
The latest of these is Cécile de France, one of the cinema's hottest young stars [pictured above]. Otherwise, Belgium is Brussels, the French-speaking seat of the European bureacracy and source of many French ills.
Watching the mess in Georgia, we should not get too smug about breakaway provinces on the fringe of central Asia. An ugly struggle for ethnic separation is brewing only an hour's train trip north from Paris......in Belgium.
Drunken Walloon sports minister spotted at Olympics
Walloon Sports Minister Michel Daerden was spotted drunk in the stands while watching the tennis and hockey events in Beijing.
Michel Daerden is in Beijing to support the Belgian athletes but appears to be over enthusiastic in his cheering efforts as he was spotted drunk in the stands for the tennis and hockey events.
Daerden went to Beijing to watch the tennis doubles' match of Olivier Rochus and Steve Darcis against the Argentineans David Nalbandian and Guillermo Cañas.Daerden, apparently drunk in the stands, was very loud, and this reportedly disturbed David Nalbandian. "Hey you there, you don't know the rules of tennis, do you," shouted the Argentine tennis player to the Belgian spectator.
Daerden was reportedly also drunk when he was encouraging the Belgian hockey team from the stands. "Michel Daerden really has a drinking problem, everyone knows it," said Flemish Sports Minister Bert Anciaux in a reaction to the incident.
"But he is not the only one. Others keep it under wraps. People in politics drink a lot.""It irritates me that the excessive alcohol is seen as normal and is accepted so readily," said Bert Anciaux to the daily Het Laatste Nieuws.
Now those damn Flemish are even outsourcing their unemployment to Wallonia.
MR chamber member François Bellot, serving as mayor of the tourist attraction town of Rochefort in the Ardennes, is of the opinion that the Flemish jobless are moving to Wallonia to escape the Flemish employment service VDAB, who continuously bother them with finding a new job.
Imagine that....getting unemployment, and they actually expect you to "look" for a job!
They do not have to fear the Walloon service Forem, who will not bother them, the mayor believes. Moreover, they can live much more cheaply in Wallonia. He has questioned federal labour minister Joëlle Milquet (CdH) on this matter and she has responded by saying that the Flemings in Wallonia will also fall under the administrative control of the federal employment office RVA in addition to the activation policy of the Walloon employment service Forem.
It is of no strategic value to anyone, and should no longer be sustained artificially To paraphrase Rene Magritte, one of the few unquestionably famous Belgians, 'Ceci n'est pas une nation'. As the slow dissolution of their state continues, even Francophone Belgians, hitherto champions of the status quo, are casting around for alternatives. A poll in Le Soir suggests that 49 per cent of Walloons favour incorporation into France, up from 22 per cent at the end of last year. The Flemish, for their part, tend to see Belgium as a mechanism for taking their taxes and subsidising the Walloons. (They are wrong: it is a mechanism for taking their taxes and subsidising the most bloated public sector in Europe. Ordinary Walloons do just as badly out of the racket as they do.)
I don't think the French would take them though. Why not ally them with the Quebecois and create a new nation of Francophone rejects.
If Belgium should be split, almost half of the people living below the language divide, in Wallonia, would not object to Wallonia becoming a part of France. According to a poll carried out by the Francophone Belgian daily Le Soir and the French daily La Voix du Nord, 49 percent of Walloon citizens would not object to Wallonia being incorporated into France.
I don't think the French would take them though. Why not ally them with the Quebecois and create a new nation of Francophone rejects.
The same poll, conducted among some 1,500 people, shows that 60 percent of French respondents support the idea. 23 percent of Walloon respondents think that Belgium will really cease to exist, but 59 percent say our country will not disappear. However, the political crisis in Belgium is "serious" according to 93 percent of the people taking part in the poll.
"Wallonia and France are quite close already" The Flemish public broadcaster VRT went to Brussels to listen to the man in the street. "Belgium wil disappear, that's for sure. If there is a majority in Flanders to split the country up... it's like in a relationship. If your wife wants to go, she is off", says one French-speaking man. "Wallonia becoming a part of France would have one big advantage. We would only have one government. One, instead of six!" says another man. "Wallonia and France are quite close", a French-speaking woman tells reporters. "We speak the same language and have the same mentality."
Three young Belgian boys were fighting over whose dad was the best."
The Flemish boy said my dad is so good he can shoot an arrow, run after it, get in front of it, and catch it in his bare hands.""
The boy from the German part of Belgium said," my dad is so good that he can shoot a gun, run after the bullet, get in front of it and catch it in his bare hands.""
I've got you both beat said the Walloon boy. My dad works for the Belgian government. He gets off work at 5:00 and is home by 4:30."
The joke at the national celebrations was that yesterday's event could end up being the last one with Belgium splitting apart along linguistic lines. For the moment such predictions seem far-fetched if only because the capital, Brussels, is rooted in Flanders yet has a clear majority Francophone population.
But if the political deadlock drags on for much longer at a time when inflation is running at 5.8 per cent and the Belgian economy is grinding to a halt, who knows where the current impasse will lead the country? READ MORE
Sending in pictures of your boobs to solve the political crisis in Belgium. Sounds like the best idea I've heard yet, and how can it be any worse than what these idiots have accomplished in the last year. We will take direct submissions of boobs on this website for any reason. check out Boobs for Belgium
A simmering Belgian political crisis boiled over today after Flemish lawmakers voted on the deeply-contentious issue of French-speakers' voting rights in Brussels suburbs, threatening the fragile coalition government. Members of parliament managed to schedule in a vote on the issue as sought by Flemish lawmakers, which minority French-speaking legislators see as a direct affront. But to block any vote for 120 days French-speakers could launch a conflict of interest procedure as early as Friday. Eager to avoid a crisis, Prime Minister Yves Leterme had in recent days been racing against the clock to negotiate a compromise on the issue, which is threatening his government barely two months after taking office. The row was one of many dividing politicians of the rival language communities as Leterme struggled for nine months to set up a coalition government following his election victory last June. Flemish parties, want to do away with a special arrangement whereby French-speakers in Flemish suburbs of Brussels vote in the capital, where French-speakers are a majority. Flanders seeks greater regional powers to reflect its prosperous status. It also resents subsidising the less affluent French-speaking Wallonia region.
While the Belgian government is today wriggling over the constituency issue of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (BHV) which once again might throw the country into a government-less limbo and renewed chaos, you can play an online dead pool game to predict when Belgium will cease to exist. The prize: your weight in Belgian French Fries.
Premier Yves Leterme gave the impression that he would agree to a compromise proposal to play for time on the Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde issue, but his party did not follow him. The proposal that the Flemish should approve an extension of the vote on BHV until 15 July came from VLD chairman Bart Somers.
The French-speaking would then invoke a new conflict of interests to allow a 120-day respite from BHV issue in order to focus on more pressing items on the agenda. However, the CD&V cartel did not accept this compromise.
Leterme now intends to make one last effort to find a solution, but it seems highly unlikely that its cartel partner N-VA will accept any proposal to circumvent voting in parliament.
The atmosphere between the Flemish and French-speaking politicians continues to deteriorate, De Standaard has established. Yet they are in agreement that today’s planned parliamentary session would be cancelled. However, the French-speakers seem to assume that the BHV split will appear on the parliamentary agenda. This morning Laurette Onkelinx (PS), vice prime minister announced that all French speaking parties wlll do all they can to prevent a vote in the parliament.
Belgium's linguistic communities pay a high price for sticking together, resorting to fudges that range from the silly to the destructive. Put like that, you can see Belgium's new government not as a relief, but as an awful warning. A political union hatched together by a fractious elite, and answerable only to itself, is not a model for anybody to follow. STORY IN THE ECONOMIST
The Leader of the Belgium Liberals, the primary Party in the Belgian coalition Government, has called for legal euthanasia to be permitted for teens and children. The 2002 law which permitted euthanasia on newborns and terminally ill patients suffering "constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain" currently restricts euthanasia to newborns and those over 18 years of age.
Can't we extend that to Belgian Politicians....even if it's unvoluntary...maybe put it up for a vote? STORY
Belgium has a new Federal Government today. King Albert has sworn in the new five party administration. This afternoon Prime Minister Yves Leterme will deliver his government’s policy statement in Parliament. Here's a picture of the motley crew, somebody help us! "the only merit of this government is that it is a government " (HetNieuwsblad)
“Belgium’s political crisis finally over” reads the headline on an article from Radio Netherlands Worldwide. “It’s taken nine months, but now the political crisis in Belgium appears finally to have been resolved.“ Has it really been resolved though? The new governing coalition is far from an ideal stable government. It is a hodgepodge of parties that are in many ways ideologically opposed to each other. French speaking Socialists, Dutch speaking Christian Democrats, and the nonsense speaking Liberal VLD whose ‘accomplishments’ over the past years in government include taking their political opposition (Vlaams Blok) to court while letting some of the most heinous murderers in Belgium’s history run free.
Despite being roundly thumped by the electorate in the election nine months ago the VLD find themselves once again in the government with parties whose only shared common interest is their quest for power and stomping out of political dissent. A setup that has rightly been called “The Cartel”. This is Belgium’s ‘new’ government, in fact not much different from the old one. MORE HERE
George Bush's popularity rating would look pretty good in Belgium, where an opinion poll for the daily La Libre Belgique showed that 54 percent of the north and 92 percent of the south did not trust the new Belgian prime minister.
Belgium Political Crisis Ends With New Government. Belgium's rival parties say they have agreed to a new government, ending months of deadlock over demands for greater autonomy by the Dutch-speaking part of the country.
The deal for a coalition government was reached by five Belgian political parties representing not only political differences - between the left and the right - but the key split between those from Francophone Wallonia and Dutch-speaking Flanders.
AFTER nine months, Belgium finally gets a proper government on Thursday. (Let me know how that works out) Guy Verhofstadt, prime minister since 1999, will make way for Yves Leterme and a new five-party coalition.
The deal will lead to a further weakening of Belgium's federal state in favour of regional governments, an unpopular decision in the poorer, Francophone south, where some of them might actually have to get a job to get paid.
It's only the middle of the night because you started at 1pm you retards!
Isn't it amazing how these politicians arrange things so you can write the above headline? A lot of us work 17 hour days occasionally when under pressure. We just call it "Wednesday"...instead of Marathon Session.
Following marathon talks of 17 hours, an accord was reached early Tuesday morning which balances the federal budget for 2008. The marathon session started at 1 pm Monday afternoon. The negotiations were tough. An extra €300 million in expenditures were earmarked, of which €200 million for social benefits. STORY
My...lets throw flowers at ourselves and we shall be known as the Committee of Wise Men! It's been my experience that a wise man in Belgium must be an expat or a tourist.
Eight Belgian elder statesmen reached a breakthrough deal on further devolution early on Monday that could end eight months of political deadlock and lead to formation of a new government within a month. Under the deal reached early on Monday, the interim five-party government would try to transfer a series of minor powers to the regions and pursue measures to strengthen cooperation between the regions. STORY
PM Verhofstadt confirmed his intention to leave before Easter at a meeting of party chairs Monday evening. On Maundy Thursday Verhofstadt will pass the torch on to Yves Leterme. Leterme can then go to the King with his team of ministers to be sworn in, and his government declaration is planned to take place in parliament that Thursday afternoon.
France takes a condescending, affectionate approach to its small neighbour. The butt of jokes, Belgians are seen as slow-witted frites eaters with a creative genius that produced Art Nouveau, Hergé, the father of Tintin, and entertainers who move to France when they make it.
