Fragile Belgium faces crisis as deadline looms

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels

Last Updated: 7:35PM BST 14/07/2008

Belgium's fragile government is today expected to hit a new crisis as deep divisions between French and Dutch speakers threaten to plunge the country into a new political crisis.

Yves Leterme, the Belgian Prime Minister, has a July 15 deadline to find a future balance of power between Belgium's Walloon and Flemish communities.

Belgium's politics is sharply divided on the basis of language between Flanders, with a majority of 6.5 million Dutch speakers and Wallonia, with a large minority of four million francophone citizens.

Mr Leterme's government, formed in March, followed an unprecedented power vacuum that left Belgium without a government for nine months after elections in June 2007 strengthened parties demanding more self-government for Dutch-speaking Flanders.

Flemish members of the government coalition are demanding political reform to give their community more regional autonomy, including rights to enforce use of the Dutch language in municipalities and public services.

"A full blown constitutional reform plan for tomorrow is impossible," said Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders, a French-speaker.

"First we need goodwill from all parties to agree on a true reform of the state."

Just minutes away from Brussels, and the heart of the EU, linguistic tensions between the Flemish and Walloons are flaring in commuter suburbs and threatening to rip Belgium's federal structures apart.

Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde is at the heart of Belgian's political deadlock with long-running legal battles and bitter rows over whether the suburban electoral constituency should be split between a Dutch-speaking and Walloon municipalities.

Also close to Brussels, European human rights watchdogs have criticised Flemish regional authorities for blocking three French speaking elected mayors from taking up public office since January 2007.

Linkebeek, Wezembeek-Oppem and Kraainem are officially part of Flanders but local majorities of French speaking inhabitants have elected mayors who are refusing to conduct official business only in the Dutch language.

In the Flemish towns of Zaventem and Vilvoorde, also on the Brussels periphery, council housing is restricted to Dutch-speakers - even though francophone Walloons are Belgian citizens too.

Overijse, another commuter town close to the capital with a large minority of francophones, has been split by demands by the Flemish authorities for the removal of all signs or advertisements in French or English.

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