I'll let Ox get into details, but "no more belgium" is a (couple of) bridge(s) too far. He said there's no future IF things just continue the way they're going now for instance, big difference. Bottomline: our politicians aren't doing what they're royally paid for.

I'm simply disgusted by politics, you'd wonder why.

sometimes I think the US would be better off if all the politicians just stopped going to work.

Yeah, you're not alone Satis.

I honestly can't be bothered explaining it J. It's so complicated. It's like you'd need to write a 4-page essay to kind of get to the bottom of it, let alone explain the actual problems (like B-H-V). I'm pretty sure most people in Belgium have no idea what they are really about (the actual problem/issues I mean).

Suffice to say...and for the sake of simplicity I will narrow it down to the large lines a bit: Belgium has two major parts, Flanders (in the North towards Holland) and Wallonia (in the South towards France), with the capital region of Brussels in between. In Flanders they speak Dutch, in Wallonia they speak French. Both regions have 'separate' elections: in Flanders you can only vote for Flemish parties, in Wallonia only for Walloon parties.

Normally speaking this isn't a problem as the two regions have mirror parties: the Flemish socialist party almost always tries to stick with the Wallonian socialist party, same for liberal, christian-democrates and greens on both sides. So making a government is relatively easier than one would think, given the coalition system and many parties.

Now, they are parties that only operate in one part and not in the other. Unsurprisingly, these parties' agenda is often nationalist and/or seperatist. They either want to get rid of the other part as much as possible (independence, or a larger amount of self-government), or they want to preserve certain 'rights' (against redivision of government, against redivision of money, etc). These parties are mostly strong in Flanders, as it is by far the richest region of the two. There are two important ones: the Vlaams Belang, a seperatist party with far-right agenda (against foreigners, Islam, zero tolerance, you know) and the N-VA (New-Flemish Alliance). The N-VA is a separatist party, but not far-right. They're somewhere between liberal and conservative on the ideological scale.

The N-VA won the elections in Flanders with a massive victory last year. And since Flanders has more inhabitants than Wallonia, they are also the biggest party in the entire of Belgium now. In Wallonia, the PS (Socialist Party) won, which is both anti-seperatist and ideologically very much unlike the N-VA. What the N-VA wants is to reform the federal structure so that Flanders will have more self-governance and sees more of its economic output return to its own benefit, instead of going to the substantially poorer Wallonia. Wallonia, obviously, is not too keen on that.

So what is happening now is that the party leaders are trying to come to SOME sort of agreement within the federal negotation structure. This is...challenging to say the least, as they want completely opposite things. And of course, neither wants to come out as weak by giving in too easily, or their may end up dropping them. Also, in case there are new elections to reshuffle the cards, neither wants to give the impression to have given an inch so they won't lose voters. Which means they're jumping from one leg on the other: on the one hand they're constantly negotiating, revising, having backroom talks about how to come to an agreement...on the other, they're also making tough statements in newspapers (often foreign) and complaining in the media about how the other party 'doesn't seem to want to come an agreement'.

There have been several attempts to close the negotations, by several mediators appointed by the King, but so far things haven't really budged much. Which is kinda sad, as we're almost a year going now. Goddamn politics.

(the funny thing is, people abroad always seem to think that this is a massive problem for Belgium as a country, having no current government. But in fact, there are a ton of measures in place to circumvent this stuff. We just finish the Presidency of the EU with a "current affairs" government for example - one that can maintain business but can't make new decisions. And apart from a fw minor niggles, there's barely a difference with a new government in practice.)

I can't believe I just read all that. I probably now know more about Belgium politics than anyone in 50 miles of me.

fixed your post

And lol @ Ox saying he can't be bothered explaining (same for me) but typing a shitload of text anyway.

haha, yea, I noticed that. I was reading the first couple sentences where he says he's not going to explain and was like... then wtf is the rest of this long ass post about?

At least it's not a 4-page essay!

Besides, this is just the current situation (in a simplified version). For historical background and whatnot I'd need a whole lot more space.