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Belgian government falls
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 26 - 04 - 2010


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.


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