An expensive divorce on the cards?
Okay - I swear I'm not obsessed with Belgium. Yes, I know I've blogged about the place several times before, but I just find it so fascinating that the county seems to be imploding on itself. And I'm not alone in this - the European press are lapping it up, enjoying the irony that the seat of EU government may itself fall apart, Balkan-style.
Today's Telegraph looks again at the inherent instability of the country's make-up and constitution, highlighting the frustrations that people on both sides feel.
Beer, the national dish of "moules et frites" or "mosselen met frieten" and a pervasive cynicism with politicians are all that holds Belgium together after 100 days without government.
Despite increasingly desperate calls by Belgium's King Albert for national unity, the federal state has hit its worst crisis for 177 years after national elections on June 10 failed to produce a government and coalition talks descended into ugly squabbling between francophone Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemish.
Freddy van Hoevelen, lives in the Flemish Brabant town of Vilvoorde, where legal battles and bitter rows over whether the Dutch-speaking municipality should be autonomous from a Walloon electoral constituency, are at the heart of Belgian's political deadlock.
The 39-year old Flemish IT consultant has had enough. "The Belgian franc is gone. Our football team never wins anything anymore. The monarchy cannot even appeal to the politicians to stick together. It is time for us to get a divorce," he said.
"With the best will in the world, you can not build a country on a shared taste for mussels, chips and beer - no matter how tasty."
At the core of Belgium's crisis is a democratic deficit hardwired into a federal system that institutionalises divisions between Flanders, in the north of the country, and the southern region of Wallonia.
Belgium's 10.5 million citizens vote along ethnic lines, there are no national political figures in the country's 11 parties and there are five parliaments organised on rigid regional and linguistic lines.
While the Flemish make up the majority, with 60 per cent, political power must shared equally with the Walloons. This means that if half the country's 40 per cent of French speakers, only a fifth of the total population, want to block a government coalition they can.
An opinion poll in August about the disintegration of Belgium, underlined the divide with 45 per cent of Flemish people in favour compared with 20 per cent of Walloons against.
The Flemish sense of grievance is compounded by economic divides and a popular feeling that Walloons are unfairly benefiting. Unemployment among French speakers is 20 per cent, compared to eight per cent among Flemings.
Els De Graef echoes the sentiments of many Flemish nationalists when she accuses the Walloons of being "spongers" and "welfare addicts".
"We have had enough of paying for people who are just sucking at the welfare tit. The Flemish have a work ethic, too many Walloons just expect a free ride," said the Brussels housewife.
Images of young Flemish activists burning the Belgian flag hit the headlines last week, frightening many French speakers. The pictures were all the more shocking because they involve the youth wing of mainstream nationalists involved in government talks, not the extreme right separatists in Vlaams Belang.
Anne Abney, a young French-speaking student who lives in Vilvoorde with her Moroccan boyfriend, fears that Flemish separatism has ugly undercurrents.
"Many Flemish municipalities have banned the French language and many Flemish nationalists are intolerant and anti-immigrant. I would be frightened to live in an independent Flanders. I do not think it would be as liberal as the Netherlands," she said.
Like many Belgians, Nadine Christiaens, a Flemish librarian working in the multi-cultural Schaarbeek district of Brussels, believes Belgium is a flawed construction but also that a "pure Flanders" is a myth.
"I think the Flanders the Flemish politicians see does not exist anymore. Half my street are immigrants and do not speak Flemish. We live in a multi-cultural modern society. What is the Flanders they standing for? They think it is black and white but it is not," she said.
In the end, widespread cynicism with all Belgian politicians, both Flemish and Walloon, may be Belgium's salvation.
Koen Bollaert expressed the view of many on the prospects of a separate Flanders and Wallonie: "It will just be even more of an expensive and complicated racket than the federal government. It will not happen."
