New Belgium solves nothing
Since the spring of 1993, Belgium has officially been a "federal state composed of communities and regions". Parliament has adopted the so- called Saint Michel accords between the parties of the Social
Christian/Socialist governmental coalition and three opposition parties:
International Viewpoint #247 July 1993 about 80% French-speaking. The regional and community institutions sit jointly in Flanders, separately in Wallonia. Since the 1988 reform, which transferred education to the communities, the central state manages only 60% of the public
Ecologists, Agalev (the Flemish Greens) and the Flemish nationalist party Volksunie.1 The liberal parties, also in opposition, are divided. The Flemish Liberal Democrats (VLD) have voted for various revised articles a la carte, whereas the Francophone Liberal Reformist Party (PRL) has denounced the "separatist drift". The far-right Vlaams Blok has also voted against the reform, but for diametrically opposed reasons. The Blok favours an independent Flemish republic, that is, separatism. Outside parliamentary circles, the new revision of the fundamental law has been actively supported by the trade unions and the employers. Both see it as a guarantee of stability for the "Belgian model".
budget. It is only responsible for justice, the interior, defence, finance, foreign policy and social affairs.
The new reform brings three principal changes; it accentuates the key role of the regions, organises the direct election of the federated assemblies and changes the responsibilities of the senate. In addition, the province of Brabant is replaced by a Flemish Brabant and a Walloon Brabant.
"New elites"
The region becomes the most impor-
ALAIN TONDEUR* — Brussels, June 6, 1993
HROUGHOUT the last few retorm have argued that it was indispensable to prevent a collapse of the state, indeed a "Yugoslav-style" crisis. Now the reform has been voted through, it remains the case that nothing has been definitively settled. A little before the vote, the president-minister of the Flemish executive, the Social Christian Luc Van den Brande, was still playing with the idea of a divorce of the Czechoslovak type. On the other hand, a "committee against separatism" - emerging from nowhere, but supported discreetly by the business world -assembled to general surprise 50,000 demonstrators, mainly Francophone.
The prime minister, Jean-Luc Dehaene of the Social Christian Party (CVP), father of the new reform (the fourth in 20 years!), has said that the constitutional framework should be rediscussed. It is doubtful that this can be done quietly. It is more likely that the inter-communal polemics will break out again in unexpected ways propelled by the sharp political and social frustrations brought about by Maastricht and austerity. The Belgian state will undoubtedly survive, but in what form? And at what price for social gains and democratic rights?
In the course of history, the national question, the social question and capitalist 24 development have combined in a completely specific fashion in Belgium. It is this combination which confers on Belgian society (or rather the Walloon and Flemish societies) its (their) specific contradictions.? Since the Second World War, the ruling class has assured its domination through two mechanisms: a close collaboration with the leaderships of the workers' movement, to maintain social peace, and a decentralization of the institutions combined with a reinforcement of the regime at every level, to conserve the state. The new phase of the constitutional reform continues this orientation, as much by its content as the circumstances of its birth.
### Distinct responsibilities
Three constitutional reforms (1970, 1980 and 1988) shaped todays Belgian state; three regions (Flanders, Wallonie and the capital, Brussels) and three communities (Dutch, German and French speaking). Regions and communities have distinct responsibilities; economic policy, land and housing are the responsibility of the regions; education and cultural policy in general that of the communities. Both regions and communities have an assembly and an executive. The Walloon region governs the Francophones of Brussels, a city situated in Flanders but tant level of power between the commune (municipality) and the central state. It inherits some residual responsibilities? and could, in certain circumstances, ratify international agreements. The regional assembly, at last directly elected, becomes the framework of affirmation of the regional "new elites". The reform also puts an end to a profoundly anti-democratic situation: between 1980 and the time, not yet fixed, of their first direct election (when the current chambers will be dissolved), the regional assemblies have been composed of Walloon or Flemish deputies, seated alternatively in the region or in the national parliament. The community assemblies will continue to be designated indirectly.4
In Francophone Belgium, the reform thus accentuates the decline of the community in relation to the Walloon region. The Senate, for its part, has been profoundly changed. Its membership falls from 184 to 71 (29 Francophone, 41 Flemish and a German). It will be competent only to settle conflicts of interest at the level of the assemblies. Its composition will be determined by a complex mechanism of direct and indirect election, and co-option, so that not only each region
* The author is a member of the Socialist Workers' Party (POS/SAP - Belgian section of the Fourth International) and editor of their journal La Gauche.
1. There are no longer unitary parties among the parties represented in parliament.
2. See A. Tondeur, "L'intégration européene fragilise l'Etat belge", Le Monde Diplomatique, July 1992.
3. The functions which are not explicitly attributed.
4. With the exception of the German-speaking council, which is elected.
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BELGIUM
International Viewpoint #247 July 1993 and community but also the Flemish and Brussels French-speakers are represented - also so that the nomenklatura of the traditional parties is not too badly hurt by a more radical reform.
The growing weight of the regions and the reform of the senate are the two big arguments of those who claim that Belgium has entered for good into an era of "union federalism" and "community peace". But a closer examination cautions against this optimism.
The new senate is not a genuine federal chamber. It retains its right of initiative on all matters - except those which will be the exclusive domain of the chamber.5 Moreover, its composition is strictly proportional to the population of the country - whereas genuine federal states opt for parity, even over-representation of minorities. In these conditions, it might be feared that the most acute conflicts will be settled by the judges of the court of arbitration, which is not elected. This is far from a democratic federalism.
### Impose
Moreover, the whole of the institutional schema is not reflected by any advance towards more democratic rights. The regional and community assemblies will be elected for a fixed term of five years. The right and a section of the social democracy wanted to constitutionally impose a legislative parliament at the national level also. They have had to content themselves with a clause of "constructive mistrust" (the parliamentary majority which removes a prime minister at the same time proposes the name of a successor), which is moreover not much use when the chamber maintains in parallel the possibility of bringing down the government without having the ability to replace it. On the contrary, those politicians concerned with their strongman image will ensure that the reform imposes at most 15 national ministers, and that these latter abandon their parliamentary mandate to enter the government.
The proposed mechanism for the Brussels institutions is of bewildering complexity. The regional council in Brussels will have 75 members — as many as Wallonia, which is more populous. The reason: without this the traditional Flemish parties, eroded by the crisis of the political class and elected by less than 20% of the Brussels population, will not be sure of being all represented among the 11 Flemish elected deputies. The 75 deputies will be divided among three bodies responsible for community matters, respectively dealing with Francophone, Flemish and "bi-community" matters. These bodies are asymmetrically linked to the French and Flemish communities, and their financing is partially interdependent.
This reproduces, in miniature, the mechanism of "compensations" which has for some years clogged the wheels of the central state. It would be astonishing if it does not have the same effect at the level of Brussels. Whatever happens, this complicated picture will not lead to the self-government of Brussels by its people. It is true that the capital of Europe itself embodies a denial of democracy; its inhabitants of immigrant origin 200,000 out of a million people have strictly no chance to vote on the choices which concern
Debt
Above all, the regions will not be responsible for tax policy, which will remain the domain of the central state. The federal entities have only the possibility of raising taxes or deducting a few additional centimes. It amounts to a decisive point, for the Belgian public finances are burdened with a debt of 8,000bn francs, leading to the payment of astronomical interest; more than 700bn francs for 1993. Without this charge, the state budget would be in surplus. From the economic point of view, Belgian "federalism" comes down to devolving to the decentralised institutions the constraints of austerity decided at the national and international level. How does this link to the national question? Simple: the egoistic reflexes, the withdrawal into a search for identity and the quest for scapegoats, that the crisis engenders throughout Europe, have tended here to deepen the gap between the Flemish and Walloon peoples, to the extent that the central state seems increasingly suspended in air. And it is thus that a national question can reemerge even when, in the opinion of most people, there is no longer any kind of oppression of national democratic rights.
The management of the debt has for 15 years led to a stifling austerity. The balance sheet between 1982 and 1992 can be summed up in four figures: GNP up by 24%; income for wage earners down by 13%; income of enterprises up by 75%; incomes of the rich up by 37% A gigantic transfer of the wealth of labour towards capital has been happening permanently since the end of the 1970s, whatever the coalition in power. It is not by chance that the curve of community agitation has risen over the same time; it tends to follow that of austerity. Moreover, austerity fed the electoralist inclination of the entire political class — and not only of the nationalist demagogues — to conceal its demands for sacrifice behind the necessity of reaching a compromise with "the Flemish" or "the Francophones", as the case may be.
Social security - one of the best systems in Europe — will increasingly be the prime target for transforming social questions into community questions, and vice versa. Its management has remained national, like that of the debt and tax policy. Some Flemish voices have been raised to demand at least a partial federalisation of social security and the debt, arguing that Flanders will recover more quickly without the "Walloon burden" 8
It is not astonishing that the Vlaams Blok, the Flemish liberals (VLD) and the Flemish employers association (VEV) have taken this line. But some sectors in the trade unions have also hesitated on what attitude to take. In the end, the eventuality of a division of responsibility for social security has been ruled out by the forces dominant in the state, in the parties in power, in the trade unions and the employers' associations. The reasons are obviously different; for the unitarists nostalgic for the Belgium of their fathers, social security is a precious supplement to the soul of the national state and its monarchy; for the trade unions, it is the guarantee of solidarity between active and non-active workers in the north and south; for the employers, they fear that federalisation is a step towards the dissolution of economic and monetary union.
### Death knell
What holds this unwieldy coalition together? All agree in believing that a federalisation of social security under the pressure of nationalist outbiddings will sound the death knell of the Belgian state and its system of social relations. But all agree at the same time on the necessity of governing the ensemble of the public finances/social security by an austerity policy — to ram through Maastricht. And
5. The chamber is only competent for the control of the executive, theoretically.
6. To ratily Maastricht, it was first necessary to modify the constitution so as to inscribe therein the right of nonBelgians originating from an EC country to vote in communal elections. The government refused to do so, so as not to open the Pandora's box of the status of non-Belgians in general.
7. Report of the National Bank, 1992.
8. Due to the higher rate of unemployment, Wallonia draws more heavily than Flanders from the coffers of Social Security. It is this which feeds the campaign of the nationalist demagogues in Flanders, against the "hundreds of billions of Flemish money transferred to Wallonia". In fact, researchers in both north and south agree on the derisory figure of 3bn francs in transfers.
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International Viewpoint #247 July 1993 there lies the rub, for this policy, as has been seen, undermines the state at the same time that its attacks social solidarity.
Maastricht, as we know, stipulates that the member states must reduce their deficit to 3% of GNP and their indebtedness to 60% of GNP to accede to the common currency. A small country exporting semi-finished products, a springboard for the multinationals attracted by the single market, Belgium is warmly favourable to this project. The very influential national bank favours a strong franc policy, crowned for some years by a liaison between the Belgian franc and the Deutschmark.? But the Belgian deficit is still over 6% and the debt represents 120% of GNP!
The government has adopted a plan of convergence combining privatisations, tax increases and social cutbacks. A budgetary plan in March 1993 decided on a series of measures for a total of 99.5bn francs. The impact, according to the Planning Bureau, will be a decrease of household consumption by 1.26% and the loss of 7,000 jobs. Despite this, the Maastricht objective will not be reached and social security will remain in disequilibrium.1°
Austerity plans
To the outside observer, bringing this deficit down from 6% to 3% might seem possible. But this impression changes if one takes into account the threshold already reached by the Belgian people. The net balance to finance surpassed 10% at the beginning of the 1980s. Since then, austerity plans have succeeded each other at the rate of one or two a year." All the traditional parties have attempted to tackle the bottomless pit of the public debt. From 1982 to 1987, a centre-right coalition launched a deep going attack on social gains, to the extent that the Christian trade union federation had more and more difficulty justifying its refusal to join the socialist trade union federation in opposition. At the end of this period, the return of the social democrats to government was indispensable to avoid the breakout of still graver problems. It became politically possible when the PS, ready to assume its austere duty, had profited from the disarray caused by the defeat of the struggles of 1982-87 to reinforce its control on the leadership of the FGTB
Since 1988, centre-left governments have taken up the cudgels of austerity. They have taken care to maintain an image of "justice" and attempted at first to spare the "least favoured". But the margin of manoeuvre for this was quickly 26 eaten away by the high rates of interest and by the economic recession. After the elections of November 24, 1991, an attempt to form a liberal-socialist-ecologist coalition was defeated. The centre-left team re-emerged in power under the leadership of Dehaene. His government is one of the least popular the country has known in a long time, and has come close to falling on several occasions.
Resting on an alliance of the trade unions with the bosses against the liberal right, or on the bosses and the liberal right against the trade unions. Exploiting the fear of the vacuum and the fear of elections. Exchanging the support of the Greens for Saint Michel against a system of "green taxes" and fixing itself two "historic" missions: to successfully reform the state and to satisfy the Maastricht criteria. The first mission is realised but the second seems increasingly impossible. On the eve of the Belgian presidency of the EC (second half of 1993), recognition of this leads to all kinds of
Economists and influential think tanks have openly advocated the revision of the Maastricht criteria. The Institute of Economic and Social Research (IRES) at the Catholic University of Louvain says, "There are hardly any fiscal and para-fiscal increases that we can now impose without endangering the juridical security [of the enterprises] and thus the economic perspectives. And, as regards expenditure, the administrative, economic and social objectives of the state are already deeply mortgaged."2
Their conclusion: no more reimbursement of capital and an assurance of interest payments on the debt at a rate higher than inflation, indexed but lower than the current rate. Needless to say, the creditors, 90% of them Belgian, are not ready
Crisis?
Economic crisis, social crisis, political crisis, crisis of Maastricht, crisis of the Belgian state: all this stretches tension to the extreme. This is as it was in 1986-87, after five years of centre-right government led by Martens, but with two significant differences: Firstly, the FGTB and CSC trade unions are united in a common front which, despite unemployment, could represent a powerful force. Secondly, the crisis of legitimacy of the traditional parties is deeper than it was five years ago.
The political situation in Flanders is particularly worrying for the ruling class. The Social Christian Party (CVP)
remains in profound crisis. Its base was eroded on the left by the ecologists. It has been overtaken from the right by the new liberal formation, Verhofstadt's VLD, which also fishes in the muddy waters of the Vlaams Blok. Verhofstadt has already been touted as prime minister, but his party does not offer the same guarantees of social control as the Christian Democracy. Short of an economic upturn or a revision of the Maastricht norms, it is hard to see how Belgium can cease to sink further into political quicksand, social malaise and inter-communal chaos.
### Alternative
Only an alternative to austerity, unemployment or Maastricht can counter both the authoritarian tendencies and the centrifugal tendencies which threaten to break up the country. That is to say that the powerful trade union movement (2,500,000 members) holds the key to the situation. Social and democratic advances (the eight-hour day, the 40-hour week, universal suffrage, social security and the steps taken in the direction of federalism which have contributed to the fashioning of a certain Belgian specificity, in spite of the artificial origin of the country, are the historic product of its action.
They can only be saved through new internationalist advances. But the trade union leaderships do not understand this; they confuse defence of the common gains and defence of the unitary state, fearing confrontation with the employers, supporting the EC, and refusing to advance openly into the political field. They should ponder the warning of Peter Praet, chief economist of Belgium's principal bank: "In case of recession, the public debt will be out of control and this will call for very authoritarian budgetary measures which will not be without political risks. "13 Against separatism, big capital is polishing its weapons. Will the left of the social movement do the same? *
9. A curious fact: nobody dreams of asking why Belgium must pay to achieve something it already possesses, a common currency with Germany!
10. Le Soir, May 19, 1993.
11. The social consequences, in some figures: one child out of seven lives in a state of poverty (32% for those who have a single parent working, 38% for those who grow up in a single parent family); 14.5% of housing lacks the basic amenities of running water and an inside toilet and shower; 21% of households live in a situation of objective material insecurity. Ekonomisch en sociaal tijdschrift, No. 1, 1989, Fondation Roi Baudoin, Institut national de statistiques.
12. Le Soir, August 21, 1992.
13. Le Soir, May 18, 1993.