Beyond any shame (The BHV saga, part 2)

... continued from previous post.

Just before the regional elections of 2004, the mayors of 28 Flemish municipalities in Halle-Vilvoorde (all of them, except the 7 municipalities à facilités) put the issue high on the political agenda. They claimed they could not organize unconstitutional elections. Finally they reached an agreement with all the Flemish parties they would split the electoral district immediately after the elections, using a plain majority in the federal parliament (which would probably, but not certainly cause an alarm-bell procedure, see previous post). With this agreement, all parties went to the voters. The agreement was officialized in the coalition agreement of the Flemish government. It stated that the electoral district would be split 'onverwijld' (without delay in a coordinated action of all Flemish parties. The nationalist N-VA and its cartel partner CD&V had stated they would not enter the Flemish government without the immediate split.

In order to not jeopardize the federal government, VLD and SP.A wanted to have negotiations with the French-speaking parties. However, soon it became clear the VLD in particular did everything to keep federal PM Verhofstadt in office. Ofcourse, the Francophones were aware of it, so they decided not to agree on anything. The negotiations kept going on for months. In between, a bill of law was also introduced in the federal parliament by CD&V, SP.a, Spirit, VLD and N-VA. This proposal was put on hold until Easter 2005. At that moment, CD&V and N-VA demanded the parliamentary discussion of the bill. This gave Verhofstadt only two weeks to save his government. Up to then, the negatiations were headed by federal deputy prime ministers Johan Vande Lanotte (SP.a) and Didier Reynders (MR). Verhofstadt was goint to solve the question in two weeks.

This initiated a never seen roundabout of horse trading. Proposal after proposal to appease the Francophones in exchange for a split of BHV was put on table. The VLD really wanted to save the federal government and of course the Francophones knew this, so they could ask whatever they wanted. Finally, a proposal that was very similar to the so-called Egmont pact (that made the Tindemans government fall in 1977) was under discussion. It contained far-going concessions of the Flemish in exchange for splitting the electoral district only for Lower House elections (and not for the Senate and the European elections). The territoriality principle was left (the French-speaking community would be able to establish its own schools, nurseries and retirement homes in the Brussels périphérie), French speakers in Halle-Vilvoorde would have voting rights in Brussels, the strict (but not observed) bilinguality rules in the Brussels administration would be relaxed and the Francophones in Brussels would get more money. This was unacceptable for most of the Flemish parties. Even the VLD was very uneasy about it. SP.a president Steve Stevaert tried to save the day by suggesting the Flemish should be compensated for not splitting BHV. Finally, Spirit president Geert Lambert left the negotiations. You would expect the federal government to step down after not resolving a crisis of almost a year. Not in Belgium though. The work in the parliamentary Interior commission was suspended until a confidence vote, in which all members of the government parties voted in favour of the Verhofstadt administration. When the parliamentary work was resumed, VLD and SP.a MPs voted against their own proposal of law. PS president Di Rupo said the file was put in the fridge until after the 2007 federal elections. (In a reader's letter to De Standaard, the suggestion was made you should never try to freeze something that is defrosted...)

This was not the end of the saga though. The problem was moved from the federal to the Flemish government. N-VA and also CD&V were not happy about the results and had thrown their lot with a solution for BHV. So there was a crisis in the Flemish government and the Flemish parliament was suspended. VLD and SP.a had to restore the confidence. Another government was virtually impossible, since none of the parties wanted to have the Vlaams Belang in the government and Groen! was not prepared to take part in it.


After about a week of bitching against each other, the Flemish parties decided there was no other solution than going on with the government. So they made an amendment to the coalition agreement stating they were going to reinforce the Flemish presence in the périphérie. This was actually in the original coalition agreement but nothing happened in that area. For the rest, the parties continued if nothing had occurred.

Some observations and conclusions:

• BHV was not worth a crisis. No Fleming has real disadvantages, but on the other hand it's against federal logic and a sign of Francophone arrogance. The Flemish parties didn't even try to figure out how far the Francophones would go. So we'll never know if it was worth a crisis for them. I guess not.
  
• Flemish politicians tend to do anything to hold on their jobs. Promisses of yesterday are forgotten easily today. Consistency is not their strongest point and if the press and other politicians try to point this out, they usually get angry. A very clear example from Karel De Gucht (VLD, federal Minister of Foreign Affairs): "So many promises are made before the elections. So what?"
  
• If the Flemish parties were not prepared to go all the way, the BHV split should never have been in the coalition agreement. The Flemish are still the same klootjesvolk as ever. They threaten, but it comes to the crunch, they always back off. We may be very glad they didn't agree with Verhofstadt's final proposal.
  
• The credibility of Belgian and Flemish politics has got another blow. Politicians have almost no credit left. People start to think: "They can promise whatever they want, but they're never going to keep those promises." The whole question will be baleful for the VLD and the N-VA. They more right-wing and Flemish nationalist electoral public won't put up with their capers anymore. Spirit will probably be rewarded for its storming out of negatiations, but everybody knows who's going to be the big winner of this tragicomedy: Vlaams Belang.
  
• Belgian politicians are not ashamed at all about this whole affair. The rest of the Belgians are.
  

[I will probably edit this text when I have more ideas.]