The Low Countries. Jaargang 17

Belgian Society and Politics

Since the general election of June 2007 Belgium has been plunged into a deep political crisis. At times the opposition between the country's Dutch and French language communities has been so harsh that various international newspapers have wondered whether the country could survive this political deadlock. In August 2008 the New York Times even had as a title: ‘Belgium teeters at the edge’.

Unfortunately, little up-to-date information on Belgian politics is available in English. Self-evidently, The Low Countries is a source of information, but the scope of this yearbook is much broader than just hard politics. It is very useful, therefore, that since 2007 the monthly publication Samenleving en Politiek (Society and Politics) has published an annual review of Belgian politics in English. The review consists partly of especially commissioned articles, partly of a selection of articles published earlier in the monthly review. Consequently, these annual reviews can be very useful to the discerning reader who wants to know more about the intricacies of Belgian politics.

Let there be no misunderstanding, however. Despite the title of this annual review (Belgian Society and Politics), the focus is firmly on politics and political issues. Social developments are only highlighted if they have become a political issue (e.g. the politics of diversity, the Belgian social security system, etc.). Secondly, it should be noted that the review is published by the Gerrit Kreveld Foundation, which is an independent think-tank affiliated to the Flemish Socialist party. This explains why the review devotes a number of articles to an analysis of the Socialists' extremely low score in 2007 and the prospects for social democracy during and after the European elections of June 2009. These texts are written both by academics and by leading members of the Socialist party itself. Despite the fact that these articles contain very interesting ideas and analyses, in the end the reader is left with a fundamental question. In the 2007 election the Flemish Socialist party obtained 16.2 per cent of the vote, by far the worst result of any Socialist party in Western Europe. Even in Switzerland - not the most leftist country one could think of - the Socialists score better than that. It would be extremely interesting to discover the precise reason for this negative marginal position of the Flemish Socialist party.

The 2008-2009 volume of the annual review includes a cluster of five articles on the issue of Brussels. The city of Brussels is indeed the main complicating factor in the ongoing discussion on Belgian constitu-

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tional reform. While the rest of the country is either French- or Dutch-speaking, the Brussels agglomeration (roughly one million inhabitants, out of ten million for Belgium as a whole) is officially bilingual. But Brussels is of crucial importance to the entire country: economically and culturally but also as regards infrastructure and its international status as a capital. Without Brussels it would be relatively easy for the Dutch and French regions to go their own way, but both communities would stand to lose if they could no longer profit from the economic and political powerhouse that is Brussels. It is often remarked that, just as some couples stay together ‘because of the children’, the two communities in Belgium stay together ‘because of Brussels’. In the entire discussion on the future of Belgium, however, little attention is being paid to the consequences for Brussels itself. Over the past two decades, both the Flemish and the Walloon regions have invested heavily in the economic and social fabric of their region. Brussels has been rather left behind, since the city, or city-region, has only limited autonomy. The potential of Brussels is huge, given the presence of the European Union, NATO, and the numerous international organisations and multinational corporations. But the ongoing quarrels about the future of Belgium leave the city as a kind of orphan, since neither of the two large communities is inclined to invest in it. As one of the authors in this annual review remarks: there are probably few countries in the world that fail so completely to make the best of the available economic potential.

These annual reviews are essential reading for anyone who wishes to follow the discussion on the future of Belgium and that of Socialism in Western Europe. Just a graphical note: the editors now seem in some doubt whether they want this annual review to be a proper book, or just a special issue of a monthly journal. The aesthetic effect of this in-between option is a bit poor.

Marc Hooghe

www.stichtinggerritkreveld.be