Vive la Belgique!

Source: cartacapital.com.br

About a week ago, on 30th November, it was announced that the government crisis in Belgium is over. Since April 2010 the country is without elected government, at the time when the former governing coalition broke up due to a dispute between the Flemings and the Walloons. Now, after 535 days under a provisional government's direction, the quarrelled parties seem to have agreed on a coalition between the Socialists, Christian Democrats and Liberals, and the social democrat Elio di Rupo (see photo) is said to become the new Prime Minister of this "triple-coalition". Lot of work is waiting for di Rupo and his people, that's for sure, as during this Euro-crisis Belgium became after Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal one more problem child of the EU and stands between the highly indebted EU-countries. The new coalition now plans to save 11.3 billion Euros by the end of 2012, which corresponds to one-tenth of Belgium's budget. How does the new government under di Ripo's direction want to achieve this? Their answer: With special taxes on higher incomes, taxes on share transactions, cut of the unemployment benefit and a higher age for early retirement. These reforms of course met with opposition straight away.

Source: spiegel.de

Last Friday now, 2nd December, only seven days after these announcements, between 70 000 and 80 000 people followed the call of the labour unions and went on the streets in Brussels to protest against the new government and its reforms; absolutely comprehensible considering the fact that a Belgian citizen pays already more taxes and higher energy costs compared for example to its neighbouring countries Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France. The Belgian population fears that those reforms are just the beginning, but will result in much more severe changes and consequences. It is a debatable point if this new coalition is really sustainable or if it is just some strategical move and hectic reaction on the fact that end of last month the rating agency “Standard & Poor's” (S&P) downgraded Belgium's credit rating with even "negative outlook". Anyway, regardless of whether this coalition persists or breaks up again, the Belgian middle class will be the victim and will have to be liable for the defects of the politicians, financiers and speculators - as always.