Le Nouvel Observateur: Why don't Walloons and Flemings reach agreement over institutional reform?

    Olivier Mouton: The Flemish parties have wanted to reform the State for a long time in order to obtain greater autonomy for Flanders. Since 1999, they demand the regions take greater responsibility for themselves, especially on a financial level. They also want a reconsideration of the possibility Francophones in the Flemish periphery of Brussels have today to vote for Brussels Francophone candidates in the legislative elections.

    On the French-speaking side, the parties have always said the same thing: "After the five big reforms of the 1970s, the federal government suffices to govern the country."

    And on the eve of the June 2007 legislative elections, the Flemings once again ran up against the Francophones' calm refusal to implement institutional reforms. Hence the failures of successive governments and the impasse in which we find ourselves.

    But today, thinking has evolved, especially on the Francophone side. There has been a radicalization of understanding, a maturation that has led the Francophones to say to themselves: "we too could be autonomous." At present, one feels a real disposition to allow stronger regional autonomy, even going beyond what the majority of Flemings desire.

    Is a partition of the kingdom between Francophones and Dutch-speakers imaginable?

    Ten years ago, the question was still taboo. In 2008, it's a question that public opinion revisits. People talk about it, but one must not lose sight of the fact that the country is accustomed to crises, as in the 1930s and 1950s. Then people talked about major misunderstandings within the country itself. However that may be, a partition will not happen in a snap of the fingers.

    The Brussels question poses a problem because the city has a legal status and a reality apart. It's the hyphen between Flemish Belgium and Francophone Belgium. If there were a scission, what does Brussels become? A city with international status? A city with its own government? Brussels is the capital for both sides; it's the capital of the country; the capital of Europe. This question cannot be settled just like that.

    The primary reality today is the global economic crisis that is looming. So we must find a way to streamline the discussion and find a fast way out of the crisis.

    Don't you think the political crisis in Belgium exposes the identity problems that Europe is currently experiencing with respect to economic solidarity and respect for cultural and linguistic specificities?

    I know that some do not like this definition, but Belgium is a little bit the laboratory of Europe. There's an economic and social fracture between a rich region and a poor region, as is the case in Italy and in Spain. It's also a country where two cultures cohabit, one Latin, one Germanic. The Belgian question reveals the difficulties the European Union is currently confronting in terms of solidarity, notably post enlargement.

    Belgium, like Europe, is in a phase of withdrawal in on itself, an economic, social and cultural turning inward. The Flemings feel cornered and retreat behind a linguistic barrier. They are arrogant economically, but very fragile culturally. When that position is taken up by certain populist parties, it backfires.

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    Olivier Mouton is editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper, Le Soir.

    Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.