17 July 2008 - 23H33
Belgium king rejects PM's resignation
Belgian King Albert refused to accept Prime Minister Yves Leterme's resignation following his failure to broker a deal between French and Dutch speakers. Three senior politicians have been designated to find a solution to the crisis.
Read Armen Georgian's commentary: "Belgian King gives tired government a breathing space"
Belgium's King Albert II on Thursday refused to accept Prime Minister Yves Leterme's resignation after consulting ministers on the best way to end the political crisis, a palace spokesman said.
Flemish Christian Democrat Leterme resigned late Monday after four months in office, unable to resolve a dispute between Belgium's Dutch-speaking Flemish majority and its French-speaking minority.
He will now keep his job and must oversee the implementation of social reforms only recently agreed by the coalition government formed in March.
The king designated Francophone ministers Francois-Xavier de Donnea and Raymond Langendries as well as Karl-Heinz Lambertz, head of Belgium's small German-speaking community, to kickstart an "institutional dialogue," a palace statement said.
The three have been asked "to examine in what way guarantees can be offered in order to begin in a credible way an institutional dialogue". They will have to report to the king at the end of this month.
Leterme has thus far been unable to reconcile the demands of parties from Flanders -- home to 60 percent of Belgium's 10.5 million people -- over radical reforms to the federal state.
Flanders, Belgium's Dutch-speaking northern half, is seeking more regional powers to reflect its prosperity. It also resents subsidising the less affluent, French-speaking Wallonia region to its south.
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Comments
The Czechoslovak Solution
Whether the king of Belgium likes it or not, the only solution to the Belgian crisis is the Czechoslovak Solution. The partition of Belgium into two countries as in the case of Czechoslovakia. The union of two distinctly different peoples that created Belgium in 1831 was not a solution, but a stop-gap remedy.
Belgium like Canada is on the path to a break-up like it or not. Those who believe that it continue as it now stands are only fooling themselves. The problem of Canada is similar in many ways, but the difference being that Quebec will not leave Canada in its entirety. The province of Quebec will first be partitioned to create a NEW PROVINCE along the South Shore of the Saint Lawrence River for a land link to the Maritime provinces. So everything hinges on the PARTITION of QUEBEC before any separation takes places. But of course NEW QUEBEC will have to be returned to Canada's FIRST NATIONS in its entirety for self-determination first, all other options must take a back-seat to the ABORIGINAL issues.