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Belgian government falls

caveman1917

Philosopher
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It took us 4 years and its term was going to be up in just a couple of months anyway, but still...mission accomplished, down with the government!
 
The government has resigned (assuming that the King accepts the resignation).

For all practical purposes, that means that we are stuck with a caretaker government until after the 26/may/19 parliamentary elections.
Given the time that may be needed after the elections to form a new federal government, this Michel caretaker government may well be in power for a year or so.
 
Firestone said:
The government has resigned (assuming that the King accepts the resignation).

For all practical purposes, that means that we are stuck with a caretaker government until after the 26/may/19 parliamentary elections.
Given the time that may be needed after the elections to form a new federal government, this Michel caretaker government may well be in power for a year or so.
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It means the planned austerity reforms can not be implemented because a caretaker government does not have those powers. Bring out the champagne! :)
 
Mycroft said:
An anarchist cares why?
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Are you being serious? Anarchists have opposed the austerity reform programs in the EU since, like, always. For example the planned pension reforms can now not be implemented until at least since the next election, as well as a bunch of other planned reforms which have been stopped.
 
The main reform that was supposed to be voted on this week in parliament is the reform of unemployment benefits.

One of the conditions of the N-VA (Flemish nationalist party) for supporting the government was that this reform would be implemented.
But this was not the sticking point, as all parties in the coalition had already agreed to the reform.

It may well be, given the budgetary situation and the pressure by employers, that parliament will approve this reform. Not this week, but at the beginning of next year, after some more backroom wheeling and dealing.
 
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Firestone said:
The main reform that was supposed to be voted on this week in parliament is the reform of unemployment benefits.

One of the conditions of the N-VA (Flemish nationalist party) for supporting the government was that this reform would be implemented.
But this was not the sticking point, as all parties in the coalition had already agreed to the reform.
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Well not anymore apparently.

It may well be, given the budgetary situation and the pressure by employers, that parliament will approve this reform. Not this week, but at the beginning of next year, after some more backroom wheeling and dealing.
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It's unlikely though, a government of running affairs can not introduce new legislation.
 
caveman1917 said:
Well not anymore apparently.



It's unlikely though, a government of running affairs can not introduce new legislation.
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Parliament is still there, the government can (try to) get agreements on specific measures.
This happened during the 500 (or so) days of the Leterme running affairs government.

To be clear, I'm not saying it will happen, but it is possible.
 
caveman1917 said:
It took us 4 years and its term was going to be up in just a couple of months anyway, but still...mission accomplished, down with the government!
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You don't seem to be a NV-A voter, caveman... The NV-A (who had lost ground to Vlaams Belang in recent elections) asked Michel to not sign the Marrakesh UN migration deal. He refused, and now he is likely to lose his job as head of a full powers government. I think there is often great contempt for "extreme-right" ideas in Belgium, especially among French-speaking politicians, which is probably related to Nazi crimes, and is perhaps not fully justified.
 
Michel H said:
You don't seem to be a NV-A voter, caveman...
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Obviously. I generally don't vote, but this time I might vote for these people (they're even looking for candidates, only 10 simple conditions you must fulfill).

The NV-A (who had lost ground to Vlaams Belang in recent elections) asked Michel to not sign the Marrakesh UN migration deal. He refused, and now he is likely to lose his job as head of a full powers government.
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Not quite, the NV-A had agreed to sign the UN pact but at the last moment changed their mind and started opposing it because they were afraid of losing more of their extreme-right base to VB. So it's not that they were opposed to the pact, they were in favour and only made a U-turn at the last moment.

I think there is often great contempt for "extreme-right" ideas in Belgium, especially among French-speaking politicians, which is probably related to Nazi crimes, and is perhaps not fully justified.
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There is by far not enough contempt for it in Flanders, but Flanders is a notoriously right-wing and xenophobic region.
 
caveman1917 said:
Are you being serious? Anarchists have opposed the austerity reform programs in the EU since, like, always. For example the planned pension reforms can now not be implemented until at least since the next election, as well as a bunch of other planned reforms which have been stopped.
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I though anarchism was anti-government, but in this case they're for larger government? I.E. increased government spending?
 
Mycroft said:
I though anarchism was anti-government, but in this case they're for larger government? I.E. increased government spending?
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That question is so misguided I don't even know where to start. Anarchists have always opposed wealth transfers from the working class to the bourgeoisie.
 
caveman1917 said:
That question is so misguided I don't even know where to start. Anarchists have always opposed wealth transfers from the working class to the bourgeoisie.
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It would help if you defined your terms better, and also recognize that very often your use of terms doesn't correspond with common useage.

I'm assuming from context that you see the austerity policy as the "transfer from the working class to the bourgeoisie" anarchists would be against, but what I'm asking is if anarchism is anti-government then it would follow that it should oppose the very idea of government pensions.
 
Mycroft said:
It would help if you defined your terms better, and also recognize that very often your use of terms doesn't correspond with common useage.

I'm assuming from context that you see the austerity policy as the "transfer from the working class to the bourgeoisie" anarchists would be against
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Well of course it's a wealth transfer from the working class to the bourgeoisie, the entire goal of the austerity reforms is to finance subsidies and tax breaks for the rich by cutting social services. It's a literal description of the policy, taking wealth from the working class and transferring it to the bourgeoisie.

but what I'm asking is if anarchism is anti-government then it would follow that it should oppose the very idea of government pensions.
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By your logic they should also oppose the very idea of labour regulation, such as the 8-hour work day, yet it was mostly the anarchists who led the movement for it. Have you considered that anarchists might just not be stupid enough to fall for that "let's cut your pensions and give it all to the bourgeoisie because pensions are gubmint stuff and you're opposed to the gubmint"?
 
Mycroft said:
It would help if you defined your terms better, and also recognize that very often your use of terms doesn't correspond with common useage.

I'm assuming from context that you see the austerity policy as the "transfer from the working class to the bourgeoisie" anarchists would be against, but what I'm asking is if anarchism is anti-government then it would follow that it should oppose the very idea of government pensions.
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That presupposes that Anarchists have thought anything through and have a rational plan for society.
 
Maybe they will go and beat their record - "Belgium matched the record for time taken to form a new democratic government after an election, at 353 days"

Anarchy indeed ;) - plus the fact that the economy experienced good economic growth in that record breaking time.

Early Christmas present perhaps :D
 
Captain_Swoop said:
That presupposes that Anarchists have thought anything through and have a rational plan for society.
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Uh, because they don't?
There is a reason why Anarchy is generally made up of small groups of students and academic intelletuals.
They can preach total nonsense without the worry that their theories will actually be put to the acid test of reality.
 
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dudalb said:
Uh, because they don't?
There is a reason why Anarchy is generally made up of small groups of students and academic intelletuals.
They can preach total nonsense without the worry that their theories will actually be put to the acid test of reality.
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That was Boris' plan!
 
caveman1917 said:
Well of course it's a wealth transfer from the working class to the bourgeoisie, the entire goal of the austerity reforms is to finance subsidies and tax breaks for the rich by cutting social services. It's a literal description of the policy, taking wealth from the working class and transferring it to the bourgeoisie.
Click to expand...

In common useage, "bourgeoisie" is middle class. It's only used to represent the class that owns the means of production among marxists.



caveman1917 said:
By your logic they should also oppose the very idea of labour regulation, such as the 8-hour work day, yet it was mostly the anarchists who led the movement for it. Have you considered that anarchists might just not be stupid enough to fall for that "let's cut your pensions and give it all to the bourgeoisie because pensions are gubmint stuff and you're opposed to the gubmint"?
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It's not my logic, it's a reasonable extrapolation of opposing the existence of government. That Anarchists support this one aspect of government while claiming to oppose government as a whole is evidence of irrationality in anarchist docterine.
 
Mycroft said:
In common useage, "bourgeoisie" is middle class. It's only used to represent the class that owns the means of production among marxists.











It's not my logic, it's a reasonable extrapolation of opposing the existence of government. That Anarchists support this one aspect of government while claiming to oppose government as a whole is evidence of irrationality in anarchist docterine.
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Any sufficiently well organized society is indistinguishable from government. Anarchism doesn't seem to understand this.
 
Mycroft said:
It's not my logic, it's a reasonable extrapolation of opposing the existence of government. That Anarchists support this one aspect of government while claiming to oppose government as a whole is evidence of irrationality in anarchist docterine.
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Of course not, as you say anarchists oppose government as a whole (such as the boss at work etc) but they don't tend to oppose working class mutualities (such as social security including pensions) - indeed, there's an entire strand of anarchism called mutualism in which social security mutualities find their origin. That some of those mutualities are administrated by government employees changes nothing.

There's nothing irrational about it, just your own ignorance of basic marxist and anarchist philosophy.
 
Looks like we got a government again.

During this time we went about 650 days without a government. Thereby breaking the previous record of "longest time for a country to go without a government" which was at 589 days set by Belgium in 2012, which in turn had broken the previous record of 289 days set by Iraq in 2010.
 
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caveman1917 said:
Are you being serious? Anarchists have opposed the austerity reform programs in the EU since, like, always. For example the planned pension reforms can now not be implemented until at least since the next election, as well as a bunch of other planned reforms which have been stopped.
Click to expand...

Being excited about a government enacting pension reform doesn't sound much like anarchism to me. It sounds like pro-archism, with a strong preference for governments that impose policies you approve of.

I always understood anarchism to view such instances of "good" government as being rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, when really the ship just needs to ******* sink already.
 
caveman1917 said:
Looks like we got a government again.

During this time we went about 650 days without a government. Thereby breaking the previous record of "longest time for a country to go without a government" which was at 589 days set by Belgium in 2012, which in turn had broken the previous record of 289 days set by Iraq in 2010.
Click to expand...

I think any country that can go for almost two years without a "government" is well into "a rose by any other name" territory. I wonder if the past 650 days felt like anarchy to most Belgians.
 
Mycroft said:
It would help if you defined your terms better, and also recognize that very often your use of terms doesn't correspond with common useage.
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Redefinition of words to suit one's agenda is one of signs of crackpot.
 
theprestige said:
I think any country that can go for almost two years without a "government" is well into "a rose by any other name" territory. I wonder if the past 650 days felt like anarchy to most Belgians.
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Have you ever driven over any Belgian roads? I have and each time it is firmly in the ‘Don’t even think about opening that bottle of cola now!’

The country is in no chaos whatsoever and frankly a lovely place to visit, but the absence of a government is dearly felt in things like public maintenance. At least from my perspective.
 
Firestone said:
For all practical purposes, that means that we are stuck with a caretaker government until after the 26/may/19 parliamentary elections.
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Belgium has no provision for early elections?

Normally a vote of no confidence or rejection of the budget would force the government to the polls.
 
erwinl said:
Have you ever driven over any Belgian roads? I have and each time it is firmly in the ‘Don’t even think about opening that bottle of cola now!’

The country is in no chaos whatsoever and frankly a lovely place to visit, but the absence of a government is dearly felt in things like public maintenance. At least from my perspective.
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Public maintenance has nothing to do with the absence of government, if there is no legitimate government then there is a sort of caretaker government which continues the daily functions of government such as public maintenance, it just can't propose new laws or new budgets or anything.

In a way the opposite is true, the regular overthrowing of governments puts a massive brake on neoliberal reforms designed to privatize public services (it tends to be that sort of reform that leads to public backlash which then sometimes leads to the government falling altogether). In Belgium the railways are still nationalized, the buses are still nationalized, healthcare is still nationalized, etc. As opposed to the Netherlands where, if I'm right, all those things and more have been privatized in the past couple of decades.
 
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psionl0 said:
Belgium has no provision for early elections?

Normally a vote of no confidence or rejection of the budget would force the government to the polls.
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It does have such provisions. In this case they weren't taken since new elections were already planned for 6 months later anyway. But if the political crisis, which led to the fall of the government in the first place, isn't solved then there's not much chance for a new government being able to be formed after those new elections either. Of those 650 days without government, only about 200 days were between the fall of the previous government and the new elections taking place, the other 450 days were between the elections and the point where a new government could finally be formed.
 
caveman1917 said:
Public maintenance has nothing to do with the absence of government, if there is no legitimate government then there is a sort of caretaker government which continues the daily functions of government such as public maintenance, it just can't propose new laws or new budgets or anything.

In a way the opposite is true, the regular overthrowing of governments puts a massive brake on neoliberal reforms designed to privatize public services (it tends to be that sort of reform that leads to public backlash which then sometimes leads to the government falling altogether). In Belgium the railways are still nationalized, the buses are still nationalized, healthcare is still nationalized, etc. As opposed to the Netherlands where, if I'm right, all those things and more have been privatized in the past couple of decades.
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Here it is about the same.
A caretaker government is only able to spend already agreed upon budgets and if these run out they are only able to spend just enough for the day to day functions to proceed.
If a particular project has been declared 'controversial', though the caretaker government can't spend any money on it, no matter what is agreed upon in the previous budget. Usually these are the projects where the elections will be decided on.

But.
If having only a caretaker government is not the reason for the state of Belgiums roads, than what is? Because while there are some good stretches of road, these are few and far between.
 
theprestige said:
I think any country that can go for almost two years without a "government" is well into "a rose by any other name" territory. I wonder if the past 650 days felt like anarchy to most Belgians.
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It didn't of course, for a number of reasons.

In no particular order:

- Even after the N-VA left the government at the end of 2018, they helped pass a number of laws in parliament in 2019.

- In march 2020, the Wilmes government stopped being a caretaker government and got full legislative powers, following an agreement with some opposition parties. That was done to deal with the pandemic.

- Belgium is a "federal" state. It comprises three regions, and overlapping with them, three communities. These subnational entities manage a big chunk of policy, and these governments were always in place and functioning.

- Belgium is part of the EU and has the Euro as currency. In the old days, when a political crisis was getting too long, the pressure on the Belgian Franc forced the politicians to find a compromise. That lever has gone now.
 
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It's clearly time to admit the experiment has failed and abolish Belgium.
 
erwinl said:
Here it is about the same.
A caretaker government is only able to spend already agreed upon budgets and if these run out they are only able to spend just enough for the day to day functions to proceed.
If a particular project has been declared 'controversial', though the caretaker government can't spend any money on it, no matter what is agreed upon in the previous budget. Usually these are the projects where the elections will be decided on.

But.
If having only a caretaker government is not the reason for the state of Belgiums roads, than what is? Because while there are some good stretches of road, these are few and far between.
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Roads here have been bad for as long as I can remember, I think it's just one of these chronically underfunded departments and it never gets any priority.
 
Mycroft said:
I though anarchism was anti-government, but in this case they're for larger government? I.E. increased government spending?
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I supsect the guy you are talking about will run the whole "Eventually the state will wither away in a socialist society Marxian "crap.
But then, a lot of people on the far left go back and fourth anarcy and wanting the state to run everything.
 
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