Belgium
was part of Charlemagne’s empire in the 8th and 9th centuries
but, by the 10th century, had achieved independence. The Flemish
cloth towns enjoyed great financial and political power, although
the area fell again under French control after 1322. A period of
instability ended with the accession of Philip of Burgundy
in 1419. However, on the death of his son, Charles the Bold,
in 1477, the Low Countries passed to the Hapsburgs.
The Protestant northern part rebelled against Philip II
of Spain in the 1560s and soon the division between the
southern provinces and the northern United Provinces (the basis
for the modern-day Netherlands) became established. The
Peace of Westphalia, in 1648, confirmed this position.
The region suffered badly as a result of Franco-Spanish conflicts
in the subsequent decades, most notably the War of the Spanish Succession,
which took place from 1700 to 1713, resulting in the Spanish Netherlands
passing to the Austrian Hapsburgs until 1794, apart
from a short French occupation from 1744 to 1748.
In 1790, inspired by the events in France, a local rebellion led
to the brief establishment of the United States of Belgium,
although the country was invaded by France in 1794, remaining annexed
until the fall of Napoleon in 1814. The allies
subsequently attempted to unite both Netherlands but a rebellion,
in 1830, resulted in the London Conference establishing the Kingdom
of Belgium.
The late 19th and early 20th century was a period of social and
political upheaval, even though it was ultimately overshadowed by
the outbreak of World War I during August 1914.
At the start of the war, King Albert and his army
made a stand against the invading Germans but within weeks they
were pushed back to a line behind the Yser river, which they successfully
held until 1918. The country suffered heavily in the war, not least
because much of the fighting was conducted on its territory. The
inter-war period saw the forging links between Belgium, The Netherlands
and Luxembourg, as well as the emergence of the Walloon/Flemish
schism within Belgium itself. The country was invaded by the Nazis
during 1940, remaining occupied for the rest of the war. King
Leopold, hounded by accusations of collaboration with the
Nazis, remained in Switzerland after 1945 and his nephew Baudouin
succeeded in 1951.
Belgium was a founder member of the Benelux Union
and the EU, while Brussels is the headquarters
of both NATO and the EU. Successive
Belgian governments have given strong support to the Union and have
generally favoured the integrationist policies laid down by the
Maastricht Treaty.
Belgium also has a relatively small but important colonial legacy
in central Africa – the Democratic Republic of Congo
(previously Zaïre and before that Belgian Congo), Rwanda
and Burundi. The nature of Belgian involvement
– Belgian Congo was originally established as, literally,
the personal fiefdom of King Leopold – and
their precipitate withdrawal from their African territories at the
turn of the 1960s, did not augur well for the future of the newly
independent countries. Zaïre, despite enormous mineral wealth,
has been ruined by the massively corrupt Mobutu
regime, which received consistent support from successive Belgian
governments. Rwanda and Burundi, meanwhile, have been repeatedly
engulfed by ethnic conflict.
Belgium epitomises a stable, cautiously progressive Western European
liberal democracy. The alliance with the Netherlands and Luxembourg
became the Benelux Union in 1958, which, in turn,
became one of the foundation stones of the European Community. The
principal domestic problem is the continuing tension between the
Flemish-speaking north and the French-speaking south of the country,
whose inhabitants are known as Walloons.
Electoral politics have been dominated by coalitions, as none of
the 4 major parties – the Socialists (PS),
Christian Social (CVP), Flemish Liberal
Democrats (VLD) and Liberal parties (PRL)
– have been able to attract sufficient support to establish
a government on their own. In addition, there are several smaller
parties that have a significant influence over the outcome of elections
– the ecological parties, Ecolo and Agalev,
and the extreme right-wing Flemish separatist party, Vlaams
Blok.
Coalitions of 4 or 5 parties governed Belgium throughout the 1990s.
In 1992, Belgium lost its popular and long-serving Head of State
when King Baudouin died and his brother, Prince Albert,
then succeeded to the Belgian crown. In 1993, a new constitutional
arrangement came into effect, under which Belgium became a federal
state – now comprising the largely autonomous region of Flanders,
Wallonia and the bilingual Brussels
district. A complicated 3-tier system of local government (regional,
provincial and communal) now prevails.
In the late 1990s, a series of political scandals and badly handled
major criminal cases combined to undermine the Belgian people’s
already fragile confidence in the organs of state. The June 1999
election returned a 6-party grouping, headed by VLD leader Guy
Verhofstadt, and including socialists and ecologists. But
the high level of popular discontent continues to be reflected in
the persistent influence of the Vlaams Blok, especially
in local politics. The most recent national poll in May 2003 was
notable for the continuing advance of the Blok and now approaching
20 per cent nationally. It was also a disaster for the ecologist
Greens, who were all but wiped out. Verhofstadt
remained in power at the head of a smaller coalition of his own
VLD and socialists, which has
a commanding parliamentary majority. |
