Belgium—a Queer Twist Left
Following 18 months of dithering where it has effectively had no permanent leader in power, Belgium has announced that the Socialist and Bildeburger Elio di Rupo will be appointed prime minister.
Of Italian parentage, the 60-year-old has a reputation as a flamboyant leftist. He will be the first openly declared homosexual leader of a European Union government. He is the sixth new government leader to take office in the embattled eurozone countries since the euro contagion began spreading through Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Italy and Spain.
Appointed formateur by Belgium’s King Albert ii in May and delegated the task of forming a government, Di Rupo’s resultant negotiations with Belgium’s six political parties have been tortuous, given the sharp ethnic and political divisions that exist between Belgium’s Flemish- and French-speaking communities.
This small nation that plays host to both the EU and nato headquarters is teetering on the brink of being sucked into the vortex of the euro crisis contagion.
If Di Rupo is able to cobble together a government that can last the distance—not by any means a given in today’s disruptive political climate in Brussels—it will face an almost overwhelming task in seeking appropriate remedies to its current debt crisis.
Last week, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Belgium’s long-term debt.
As is the case within an increasing number of eurozone member nations, the country’s new prime minister will have a huge task implementing tough austerity measures not only to enable survival of the national economy, but also to guarantee the retention of the new government in the process.
As the rest of Europe swings to the political right, it is a queer twist against the trend that the nation which has headquartered the European unification process from its inception based on a strong right-wing Catholic foundation would select a homosexual leftist as its leader.
It may not be long before Di Rupo feels the heat from the predominant rightist Catholic elites and becomes yet another fall guy for an appointee more acceptable to Rome and Berlin’s Holy Roman agenda.
All it would take is the collapse of the Belgian economy and the domino effect of government collapse for Berlin to apply another “Greek solution” to enable its control of yet another eurozone nation.
