2023-10-19 05:31:01
It’s a little phrase that has already come up several times in Flemish nationalist and Walloon regionalist circles. It dates back to 1988, when the 3rd state reform was being negotiated (the one which notably communitized education). At the time, certain voices including that of the liberal Armand De Decker were worried regarding an institutional reform which would “lead Belgium towards separatism“.
It was then that a young socialist deputy: Elio Di Rupo, spoke in the chamber to defend the agreement concluded within the Martens VIII government. And he does it in terms that in retrospect may be surprising. First he takes up the famous phrase of Jules Destrée: “there are no Belgians” then he develops “that is to say that Belgium is a political State, that it is not a nationality. Two Communities ignore each other or confront each other and the use of a different language seems to be the substrate fundamental to this state of affairs.”
And at the time, Elio Di Rupo went even further: “The merger of the Flemings and the Walloons, artificially carried out in 1831, turned out over time to be a heterogeneous, sometimes explosive mixture. (…) Since then, it is vain to wish for its maintenance. On the other hand, the advent of a federal Belgium or confederal to be built in a balanced and stable manner would meet the aspirations of the two Communities, and each might effectively benefit from its cultural and economic difference. The one who was then still a federal deputy concluded that the agreement then negotiated by the Martens government would constitute “one of the last chances not to divide our country in an anarchic way.
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#Elio #Rupo #pleaded #confederalism
