Belgium: less than the sum of its parts?

Inroads: A Journal of Opinion, Summer-Fall, 2008 by Johanne Poirier

Any federal solution, whether it is a formal federal system or some other kind of unity/ diversity arrangement, requires a balance between autonomy and common action. Belgium has come a long way toward autonomy. This part of the deal does not work too badly. Regions and Communities (the two forms of constitutive units in this original federation) function relatively effectively. The centre, however, is weak. In fact, one reason Belgium managed without a real federal government for over nine months is precisely that a large number of public policies are managed at the decentralized level and do not require the constant compromises inherent in central institutions. The federal government has become less and less significant in public life.

A divided civil society

A federal structure with significant powers granted to federated units, coupled with the rigid rules governing decision-making at the centre, has reduced common spaces of socialization. Flemish and French-speaking kids attend different schools--and study Belgian history from divergent angles. Flemish and French-speaking academics work more with their counterparts in Holland and France and with the rest of Europe than with each other. People do not read the same papers, listen to the same radio or watch the same TV programs. Eyes are turned to England and Holland in the north and often glued to France in the south. Knowledge of Dutch is slowly increasing among French speakers, whose bilingualism remains astoundingly limited. Meanwhile, knowledge of French in the Flemish community, which was high, is decreasing. Trade unions may be the last bastion of "federal" organizations (though they do have linguistic divides below the surface). With a few exceptions, cultural activities and even sports are divided along language lines.

What has Europe got to do with it?

Brussels, the capital of Belgium, is the only officially bilingual region of the country. It is also hugely multicultural, (4) primarily French-speaking and geographically an enclave within Flanders. At one time, Flemish dialects were dominant in Brussels, but state institutions located in the capital functioned only in French. This circumstance, combined with the international appeal of the French language in the 19th and early 20th centuries, led to its becoming a largely francophone city.s This has created resentment on the part of Flemish nationalists who regard themselves as having "lost" Brussels. They would not easily "give up" the city in the event of secession. French speakers in Brussels, for their part, do not wish to be absorbed by Flanders if Belgium were to vanish. Brussels is the treasured property that keeps the fighting couple hanging on (for just a little longer ...).

Brussels is also the capital of Europe. (6) An option that keeps cropping up is to transform Brussels into some form of international city-state, or a European district along the lines of Washington, D.C. That is one way of disposing of an obstacle to divorce: make sure the other partner does not get it and give it to someone else! However, it is doubtful that the European Union would wish to administer a city, at least beyond the limits of the European Quarter in which its main institutions are located. Why would 27 countries want to deal with local schools, garbage collection or building permits?