nice blog about Europe

[Ambiorix]

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http://www.free-europe.org/blog/english.php

The EU brought Belgium on the edge of the abyss


Belgium currently faces a very serious existential crisis. Some even dare to speak of the possibility of a complete crackdown of the homeland of both, the European Union and NATO. The crisis arose out of the government coalition talks following the June 10th Belgian general election. According to the Belgian Constitution, the two largest linguistic groups, i.e. the Dutch-speaking Flemings (ca. 60% of the population) and the French-speaking Walloons (ca. 40% of the population), the third being the Germanophones (less than 1% of the population), are to be equally represented in the Belgian government. Since the Flemish centre-right cartel list of Christian democrats and Flemish nationalists (member of the European People’s Party) polled 18.51% and the Walloon Reformist Movement (member of the European Liberals, Democrats and Reformists), an electoral alliance of liberals, liberal conservatives and Belgian unity advocates, polled 12.52%, both becoming by far the largest factions in their linguistic groups, they were doomed to form a government coalition together.
Because both parties did not yet dispose of a parliamentary majority together, they brought the Flemish Liberal-Democratic Party (ELDR, polled 11.83%) and the Walloon Humanist Democrats (EPP, polled 6.06%) around the negotiation table in order to form a centre-right government coalition, consisting of liberals, Christian democrats, Flemish nationalists and Belgian unionists, with Yves Leterme, party leader of the Flemish Christian democrats and former head of the Flemish regional government, as new Belgian prime minister, replacing the Flemish liberal Guy Verhofstadt. In spite of these four parties not having polled over 50% of the Belgian vote, combined they only represent 48.92% of the Belgian electorate, this coalition in the making would have 81 out of 150 seats in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, or a parliamentary majority of 54%. This is due to the unbalanced Belgian electoral system and the huge overrepresentation of the Walloon minority in the federal parliament.

further:
http://www.free-europe.org/blog/english.php?itemid=385