As laid out yesterday, Belgium's financial prospects are in poor health and under rising pressure from the EU and major financial institutions, the issue will colour government thinking on almost all topics. But before a longer-term course of action is set, next year's national election will allow parties to suspend the breaking of bad news as they contend for control of Belgium's government.
Given the country's division into very distinct regions that tend to highlight their differences rather than common challenges, any hope of securing a majority in government at the federal level would need to be reined in. Simply forming a government at all is an infamously protracted process – at least under the current system, though the party of current PM Alexander De Croo is calling for a change in order to avoid a rerun of previous stalemates.
Nonetheless, election excitement has been simmering and could now have a defined line to race to, with ballots likely cast on 9 June 2024. Much will still happen on the domestic and international stage before then and the process in Belgium doesn't have quite the hype as seen elsewhere. But many candidates have already set out their stall and are quite obviously appealing for public approval.
Central to securing popular support is framing the debate before it even starts. There are many ways to portray the state of national affairs but election campaigns seek to approach the various demands from a single point, an overarching mission that will direct all policies. If this unifying lens is not to be fixing the economy, it couldn't really be anything else except putting climate targets to the fore of national strategy.
The only problem is that these topics are complex (beyond the grasp of many politicians even) and lack the entertainment factor of more frivolous talking points. In fact, few matters have the emotional pull that cultural clashes have lately as politicians repeatedly rise in a spirit of hyperbolic furore over issues that pale in importance when put beside the housing shortage, farming pollution, losing energy sovereignty, the migrant crisis, drug smuggling... I could go on.
As said earlier this week, digging into "culture wars" is an international pastime that has come to dominate current affairs, and Belgium is no exception as certain officials would have us thinking that the world's wrongs are all down to gender pronouns and nut milk (that actually is not milk because it has not been extracted from an animal). It's still going on, with members of Flanders' ruling N-VA party overstating non-issues that don't concern them anyway.
What's next? Let @Orlando_tbt know.
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The Netherlands has released a guide to encourage Dutch teachers to use more inclusive language in the classroom. While pupils' organisations in Flanders are welcoming the initiative, Flemish Education Minister Ben Weyts dismissed it as "woke madness." Read more.
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