11 July 2008

MEISE - At the National Botanical Gardens, office windows are cracked, doors are broken and two greenhouses have collapsed in recent years.

The reason for the decrepitude is that the gardens lie in a Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, and French-speaking lawmakers won't approve the money for improvements.

It's just one of many signs that Belgium's perennial language time bomb is again approaching critical mass. It has plunged the country into a constitutional crisis that makes some wonder if Belgium can - or should - survive in its present rancorous jigsaw-puzzle shape.

Authorities in the Flemish towns of Zaventem and Vilvoorde limit social housing to Dutch-speakers; nearby Overijse encourages citizens to denounce shopkeepers who advertise in languages other than Dutch, and the mayor has sent letters to citizens asking them to take down signs in English or French.

The local council in Liedekerke drew widespread criticism for suggesting only Dutch-speaking kids could use municipal playgrounds.

Much of all this is happening less than a 20-minute car ride from Brussels, home of the European Union with its grand design of Europe-wide good-neighbourliness.

The next major test comes on Tuesday, the deadline set by Prime Minister Yves Leterme for parties to agree on a new balance of power between Belgium's 6.5 million Dutch speakers and 4 million Francophones.

Leterme's fragile seven-party coalition government was only sworn in March, nine months after elections that strengthened parties demanding more self-government for Dutch-speaking Flanders. If no breakthrough is made on Tuesday, the government could collapse.

"I really don't see any way out," says Damien Thiery, mayor of the town of Linkebeek.

"It's like a broken marriage. Where there is one person who really doesn't want to live with the other anymore, there's no point in hanging on. If they want to leave, then they should go."

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