Anyone who slips into Wetstraat or ends up in the rumor mill will end up in this section sooner or later.
Said has been said
Young Green can no longer be fooled. Under the co-chairmanship of Kilian Vandenhirtz and Laura Schuyesmans, the gloves are removed and the goat wool socks are put away. On July 11, the youth department tweets ‘Long live Flanders. Fuck Flemish nationalism.’ A clear provocation to the Flamingants and a striking break in style in the communication of the young ecologists. The tweet is also accompanied by a video on Instagram in which the message is repeated, under the heading “we said what we said.”
N-VA Member of Parliament Sophie De Wit regrets the ‘regrettable tweet’, ‘it could be done differently’, she responds with a witticism to an old Groen slogan. You may wonder whether Groen’s party headquarters might also feel the same way. Parties rarely think they have too many voters, but Jong Groen thinks they can do without pro-Flemish voters.
Buysvak
The Belgian state structure needs to be polished up, argues former Vooruit politician Johan Vande Lanotte in an interview with Knack. “We Belgians live in a state that we do not understand.” To achieve that goal, he hopes for a major agreement between the PS and the N-VA, he calls on both parties to at least talk to each other. Although he estimates the chances of it succeeding are low: ‘I am not optimistic about that agreement, the N-VA is not taking any action and the PS does not dare to talk to the N-VA.’ Even more than a decade after his failed round as a government broker, the horses still refuse to drink. As a professor of constitutional law, Vande Lanotte notices how complicated the current state structure is. For example, the minister of state admits that he spares his law students the lectures about the institutions of Brussels: ‘They are too difficult.’ The last word has not yet been said about the quality of our higher education either.
Condolences
Wetstraat is occasionally a book club. The death of the Czech writer Milan Kundera has inspired many a politician to tweet his farewell. Especially on the left and Christian Democratic side, praise and words of appreciation for Kundera’s oeuvre are raining down. Deputy Prime Minister Hilde Crevits (CD&V) tweeted: ‘World literature loses an icon. His wise words will continue to inspire.” Federal Minister of Development Cooperation Caroline Gennez (Vooruit) also praises his work: ‘An author who taught me to read. And laugh. Full of humour, content and irony.’ Her colleague from Mobility Georges Gilkinet (Ecolo) even ventures a poetic response: ‘A pen so just and strong to tell about the contrasts of existence. No matter how light and unwearable that is.’ Former CD&V chairman Wouter Beke on Twitter refers to the same book: ‘As a 16-year-old I read his masterpiece The Unbearable Lightness of Being. All too often I see situations where I think: this title is now appropriate.’
2023-07-12 20:13:16
#Belgians #live #state #understand
