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Vlaams Belang

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Vlaams Belang (English: Flemish Interest) is a Belgian political party. It supports Flemish independence, restricted immigration, and free market economics. The party characterizes its current party policies as those of a traditional conservative party; opponents and some observers see it as far right.[1]

History

Vlaams Belang was formed in 2004 by the leadership and members of the now defunct Vlaams Blok (English: Flemish Block), which was condemned by the High Court for permanent incitation to discrimination and racism in November 2004[2]. Some, such as the law professor Matthias Storme, see it as a political trial inspired by the Belgian establishment, because the law allegedly has been changed for the purpose of this trial.

Changes to the party platform have been made to allow it to comply with the law, and the motto of Vlaams Blok, Eigen volk eerst ("Own people first"), has been dropped, though it is still used by party leaders in meetings.

Vlaams Belang, and the former Vlaams Blok is a very divisive issue in Belgium, particularly in Flanders. One response to Vlaams Belang has been attempts to cut state funding for the party[3] [4] (see the Belgian "dry up" law). On the Flemish level, there is no political majority for such actions against other parties, as this approach is generally viewed as being counter-productive. Some (less in Flanders, more amongst Francophones) have a different opinion, and new charges are currently being prepared.

Cordon Sanitaire

Vlaams Belang is currently one of the largest Belgian parties, although other parties usually form alliances with their counterparts across the Flemish/Francophone divide (Christian-Democrats, Liberals, Socialists and Greens). Several polls carried out in 2005 and 2006 predict Vlaams Belang will be the largest party in the next election[5]. It has been growing steadily since 1978, when its predecessor "Vlaams Blok" was formed. Nonetheless, it has no direct power due to the Cordon Sanitaire, a pact between the other Belgian parties that rejected Vlaams Blok from any governing coalition because the party's views were considered to be morally unsound. Vlaams Belang alleges that social conventions about immigration meanwhile have changed and that the platform now is on the right track. But Vlaams Belang would need to convince others to join a coalition because the Belgian political system is based on proportional representation.

After the regional elections in 2004, changes in the perception of the party by the population, as well as the growing strength of the party made it possible for the Vlaams Blok to be invited briefly for negotiations at the start of the formation of the regional government. In the runup towards the local elections of late 2006, there are signs that the cordon sanitaire may be breached in some municipalities. This, or an absolute majority in a council, may give the Vlaams Belang their first chance to participate in power. The focus of the attention goes to the country's largest [6] municipality Antwerp, where Filip Dewinter is running for mayor, but most commentators expect a first rise to power would happen in one of the smaller cities, or in one of the districts of Antwerp.

Identity

Vlaams Belang advocates independence for Flanders and strict limitations on immigration. It is part of the militant wing of the Flemish movement and is a Euronationalist party.

Party platform

Some of the main points in its platform include:

  • Independence for Flanders. One stated reason for this is financial transfers from Flanders towards Brussels and Wallonia (the other parts of Belgium) which Vlaams Belang considers to be unjustified. Vlaams Belang sees the accompanying high employment cost as very negative for Flanders’ competitiveness. The bilingual Brussels Region would for geographical reasons be included in that independent Flanders, though more than 80% of its inhabitants are now French-speaking.
  • A closer co-operation between Flanders and The Netherlands, falling short of the federation with the Netherlands the former Vlaams Blok used to advocate. Vlaams Belang also wants to develop closer links with those areas in French Flanders where West Flemish used to be spoken.
  • Abolition of administrative (translations on demand, bilingual road signs) and educational (teaching in French in primary schools) facilities for French-speakers in the six concerned border municipalities with Brussels, where Dutch is the official language. Within the framework of the actual legislation, as this education with reinforced study of the Dutch language is solely financed by the Flemish government, Vlaams Belang also wants them to have the full authority about the pedagogical and language inspection. In Vlaams Belang's view, these facilities would rather frenchify the Dutch-speakers instead of assimilating the French-speakers, and their practice would extend beyond the enacted law. French-speakers - who meanwhile represent the majority of the population in those municipalities - consider however that practices would conform to the law and that those facilities did not have assimilation as a purpose.
  • Return of all non-European immigrants who fail to "assimilate". The "70 Steps Plan" of the former Vlaams Blok, which amounted close to ethnic cleansing, has been dropped. Those immigrants who want political rights (the rights to vote, to get elected and to obtain a public job) should apply for naturalization and forsake their foreign nationality. The latter especially for Moroccan and Turkish nationals. This implies the repeal of the law granting under certain conditions the right to vote in municipal elections for non-EU foreigners.
  • Opposition to the "islamisation of Europe", which Vlaams Belang views as a "frightening historical process". Filip Dewinter has declared in an interview his party could be described as islamophobic.
  • Blocking Turkey from joining the European Union.
  • Reform of the European Union by advocating a small European government and more power devolved to the Regions, so that competition between regions would lead to lower taxes. Vlaams Belang opposes today's allegedly "undemocratic" European Union and refers to it as an upcoming unnecessary monster state.
  • Full and unconditional amnesty for people convicted for collaboration with Nazi Germany after WWII. Vlaams Belang claims that many convicts were victims of excesses by the Belgian judiciary system against Flemish nationalists. It also states that it has "equal respect" for the suffering of all the victims during the years of war and the repression afterwards, regardless of whichever side they had sided with, or of whichever side the Belgian judiciary maintained that they had sided with. It states that all other European countries have already granted amnesty, and that the 1961 Belgian "Vermeylen" law is no general amnesty law such as in the Netherlands or France, it only possibly grants amnesty after expressing regret about the actions committed.
  • After the Dutch and German model, extend the law of self-defense to the defence of home, shop and property.
  • Increased child benefits, including provisions which allow one parent, if both employed, to remain at home for the benefit of education for their child or children. This is aimed at increasing the birth rate. Although allowances are only part of the parents' free decision-making process as to whether or not to beget offspring, opponents see it as a measure to reinforce traditional male/female roles, and therefore as discriminatory against women.
  • Opposition to the law enabling homosexual marriage, and opposition to the law proposal enabling adoption by homosexual couples.
  • Abortion to be allowed only in the case of rape or for medical reasons. Vlaams Belang wants to take care of unexpected pregnancies by an elaborated attendance and a relaxation of the adoption and foster parents laws.
  • Preservation of the current education system. The 2003 Pisa Report places it in general as best out of those it reviewed. Deeper analysis by the OECD however reveals that this is only true for native pupils. In the group of non-native pupils, the Flemish education system scores among the worst of systems reviewed, according to some revealing a structural discrimination against non-natives. Children of second generation foreigners even perform much worse than those of the first generation. The OECD largely attributes this difference to the fact that in Flanders 54% of the foreign pupils don’t speak Dutch at home and as a consequence don’t have a good command of the Dutch language. According to Vlaams Belang this lack of language skills is due to failing integration policies of the government and is aggravated because much foreigners search their bride abroad. [7] The party nevertheless advocates the preservation of the current education system.
  • Repeal of the anti-racism and anti-discrimination legislations on the grounds of free speech.
  • Repeal the 2003 Belgian nuclear power exit by 2025 legislation. Vlaams Belang wants to revamp the existing nuclear power plants instead of building new ones in France, which would cost many times more.
  • Free market economic policies, such as limiting government intervention. It also advocates a simplified tax system, the flat tax, combined for social purposes with a significant zero taxation threshold to exempt low incomes from taxation.
  • Reform of the pension system based upon investment funds instead of the present redistribution system. According to some sources, the Belgian state pension system is currently performing the worst out of all Western European countries. [8] [9]
  • Abolition of the Belgian trade unions’ unique pay-counter function for unemployment benefits, to step up the trade unions' global interest in creating employment. Opponents see it as a measure to weaken the trade unions, by depriving them from their 138 million euro (as of 2005) annual administration fee, the use of which is restricted to the unemployment benefit activity only.

Other facts and allegations

Some members, such as Roeland Raes have been accused of being Nazi sympathizers. See The Guardian article 'Belgium's far right party in Holocaust controversy ' for more information. Another source (in Dutch) is this Standaard.be article. Roeland Raes was charged with historical revisionism in accordance with the Belgian Negationism Law, specifically for uttering the following controversial sentence: “whether it was planned that they should all die during the war is another question”. During the interview, Raes however had no doubts about the systematic persecution and deportation of the Jews by the nazis. The original complaint goes back to 2001. Meanwhile the mother video tape with the full interview, which could have shed light on the context, got lost, so the evidence that can be used in the trial is limited to the parts of the interview that have been broadcast. Early 2006, at the Public Prosecutor’s request and after a hearing in chambers, the charges were dropped, but after an appeal by the Forum of Jewish Organisations, the case was resumed.

The late right wing Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn defended Filip Dewinter when the latter was molested in Amsterdam before and during the recordings of a television program. Fortuyn criticized that Dewinter was depicted as a fascist by the Dutch television. But in an interview with Bart Willems and Kees-Jan Dijkstra of the leftist Flemish quality newspaper ‘De Morgen’, published two days before Fortuyn died, he called Filip Dewinter a "fascist". The authenticity of this statement was disputed by the Vlaams Belang after his death. [10]

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is known to be a critic of Islam in the Netherlands, and to whom Vlaams Belang on different occasions referred to defend its points of view on Islam, called the party "a racist, anti-Semitic, extremist party that is unkind to women and that should be outlawed." According to Vlaams Belang, Hirsi Ali had been misinformed. The party considered this to be part of a smear campaign. [11]

On 31 May 2006, the court will decide whether to start a trial against former chief of police Bart Debie. Mr. Debie is now a security expert and parliamentary cooperator of the party, and will be the party's main candidate in the local elections of 2006 in the Borgerhout district. Debie would be prosecuted for torture at the police station, racism and forgery of police reports on several occasions between february 1999 and april 2003. Mr. Debie’s defence argues that he is the victim of a reckoning. Debie resigned his commission as chief of police after a preventive suspension for "blurring of moral standards" due to these allegations, and was consequently given his present party functions.

In May 2006, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, named after the famous nazi hunter, asked the Belgian government to launch a "complete investigation [...] into the activities of the Flemish Interest and its associates", after a racist shooting in Antwerp, where an African woman and a white child were killed, and a woman of Turkish descent was wounded. The Wiesenthal center added : "Despite the condemnation of these killings by the extreme right Flemish Interest Party (formerly Vlaams Blok), it is clear that the impunity granted to their Skinhead retinue and the tenor of their website links have encouraged a rising wave of racist violence in Belgium." [1]

Although the father of the 18 years old who committed the murders was a member of the party, his grandfather fought for the Flemish Legion and his aunt was a Vlaams Belang member of Parliament, the boy himself was no party member, he had always been of good reputation.[2] He neither had far-right tattoos, nor did he wear any far-right symbols and the police didn’t find indications that he had visited far-right web-sites. The father called the policeman who shot his son a “hero” who had prevented further bloodshed. Vlaams Belang condemned the crime and stresses that skinheads, extremists and other parasites are not welcome in the party. The fact that the murderer had been sent from school for smoking may have triggered his actions. He declared to the police that he had been nagged by "foreigners" during his youth, although in his farewell letter he didn’t refer to that. There are strong signals that he was influenced by computer games in which people are randomly shot, Hispanic immigrants included.

Elections

The Vlaams Belang has not taken part yet in any general election in Belgium. The next elections are the 2006 municipal elections. Vlaams Belang will enter the campaing on the theme of "Secure, Flemish, Liveable". In the aftermath of the shooting of a small child in Antwerp in May 2006, the Vlaams Belang changed its campaign poster though[3], which featured a small blond-haired girl, with likeness to the murdered child.[4]

Party organization

The Party Council is the highest organ of the Vlaams Belang party. It has about 80 members, among others the members of the Party Board, parliamentarians, local deputies and the youth organisation of the VB. The Party Council is responsible for choosing the party leader. The party executives throughout the party's organization then get to decide on the nomination. The Party Council is also responsible for fielding a candidate list at election time.

Members

Contacts with other parties in Europe

  • Vlaams Belang participates with Dutch MP Hilbrand Nawijn, formerly member of the LPF-parliamentary group of the late Pim Fortuyn in a common think tank, named after Marnix van Sint-Aldegonde, a former Antwerp mayor who had to flee to the Netherlands after the capitulation of his city to the Spaniards in the 16th century. Nawijn plans to form a new Dutch political party with a similar agenda.

Footnotes

  1. ^ See an article by Flemish secessionist and former N-VA deputy chairman Eric Defoort contesting the historical accuracy of the use (by Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt of the conservative VLD) of the expression "genuine fascist" to qualify the Vlaams Belang.
  2. ^ Court says Vlaams Blok conviction is sound, Expatriate Online, retrieved January 26, 2006.
  3. ^ Belgian political parties get public funding from both federal and regional parliaments, while private funding is restricted.
  4. ^ When Vlaams Belang was first formed, the funding for the new party in the Flemish Parliament had to be settled. On the one hand the Flemish Parliament statute book doesn’t grant funding to new parties without going to the polls (which would apply to the Vlaams Belang if it were a new party), but on the other hand it can withdraw funding from ‘racist’ parties (which would apply to the Vlaams Belang if it was still the same party as the convicted Vlaams Blok). Vlaams Belang argued that they are the legal successors of Vlaams Blok yet were a different party. The Flemish Parliamentary office which decides such cases, and where Vlaams Belang’s political competitors have a majority, decided that Vlaams Blok and Vlaams Belang were the same party and thus both “guilty of racism”. But nevertheless, they did not cut the party funding.
  5. ^ The administrative City of Brussels is only one of the 19 municipalities that make up the geographical city of Brussels.
  6. ^ This statement was published before the assassination of Pim Fortuyn, when the authors and the newspaper would have had to expect a rectification by Fortuyn. Or was it that they hoped for a rectification, to continue the debate? At any event, one of the arguments Vlaams Belang advanced is that Fortuyn was disgusted by the constant abuse of the fascism slur. Vlaams Belang also reminded that Fortuyn’s text (in Dutch) about Dewinter had been refused by the editor. It even cost him his column at nu.
  7. ^ Vlaams Belang underlined that Hirsi Ali did the statement on the occasion of a debate organised by the left-liberal think tank Liberales, whose president is Dirk Verhofstadt. Vlaams Belang added that Dirk Verhofstadt is known for regularly publishing this kind of accusations and furtermore that he is the brother of Belgian prime-minister Guy Verhofstadt [12] Vlaams Belang also wrote an open letter (in Dutch) to Hirsi Ali.

References

  1. ^ http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nl/content.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=312458&content_id={8FDFA48D-84F4-4BBB-BEDC-DD43F82A770F}&notoc=1
  2. ^ http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail.aspx?artikelId=GJ1S86KC
  3. ^ http://www.vlaamsbelang.org/index.php?p=1&id=282
  4. ^ http://www.planet.nl/planet/show/id=118880/contentid=713274/sc=f70301

News articles

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