Hopes rise for Belgium power-sharing deal

Article reports that Belgium has edged closer in July 2011 to ending its 14 month-long political crisis after a tentative breakthrough in power-sharing talks that has laid bare a rift between the country’s two main Flemish parties.

A political gamble by the Flemish Christian Democrats to enter coalition talks and turn their backs on Flemish secessionists has raised hopes that a wrenching 400-day deadlock might finally be broken.

On the 8 October 2011 Deutsche Welle reported that Belgium's feuding Flemish and francophone parties had apparently agreed on reforms aimed at the country's world-record 16-month-long political crisis.

NRC Handelsblad, 29.8.11: The opera Belgium can’t see (via PressEurop) http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/893841-opera-belgium-can-t-see

ESO: Background information: Belgian general election, 2010 http://www.europeansources.info/record/belgian-general-election-2010/

ESO: Background information: Belgium sees breakthrough as coalition talks open http://www.europeansources.info/record/belgium-sees-breakthrough-as-coalition-talks-open/

Wikipedia: New Flemish Alliance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Flemish_Alliance

Deutsche Welle, 8.10.11: Belgian parties move to mend government schism http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15445891,00.html

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