Belgium's government fell today, four days after the prime minister offered his resignation in a row over language and political rights, dpa quoted the royal palace as announcing. The collapse comes amidst feuding between Dutch- and French- speakers over the division of the Brussels electoral district, and two months before Belgium is set to take over the European Union's rotating presidency. Belgium's head of state, King Albert II, "received in audience this afternoon Prime Minister Yves Leterme. The king accepted the resignation of the government which the prime minister offered on Thursday," a brief statement from the palace said. The king tasked the fallen government with continuing caretaker duties, the statement said. The political collapse came after talks hit deadlock between the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) majority and francophone minority over the division of the Brussels-Hal-Vilvoorde electoral district, the only bilingual constituency in the country. The constitutional court ruled in 2003 that the so-called BHV district would have to be divided. Since then, however, politicians have repeatedly gridlocked as they tried to answer the Flemish demand to make parts of the district monolingual while responding to the French-speaking demand to allow voters throughout the region to support French-speaking parties. The row has brought Belgium to the brink of political chaos on several occasions, blocking the government's ability to act for much of the time since the last national elections in June 2007. Last week, former premier Jean-Luc Dehaene, known as the "minesweeper" for his ability to broker deals, presented a complex series of proposals designed to solve the BHV problem. But the five parties of Belgium's ruling coalition - two Flemish, three French-speaking - failed to agree on the proposals. On Thursday, Leterme, a Dutch-speaker, offered to quit. Instead, the king on Saturday tasked Finance Minister Didier Reynders, a French-speaker, with brokering a deal. But Reynders quit on Monday afternoon after barely more than 48 hours in the job, leaving the king little option but to accept the government's fall. It is not yet clear whether the king will task another politician with trying to form a government, or call for fresh elections. Either way, the fall comes at a highly embarrassing time for Belgium. The country is set to take over the EU presidency on July 1. Since January, the EU has had a permanent president - himself a Belgian, Herman Van Rompuy - and a foreign-policy director, but the presidency nation is expected to take the lead on other major dossiers such as home affairs, agriculture and fisheries.
