Tine Peeters is journalist.
What else can you compare government work to? Just about all the obvious comparisons have already been made about the quarrelsome government that De Croo I has become – once so hopefully started with the slogan ‘teamwork makes the dream work‘. Perhaps a parallel can be drawn with the film Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing (Sometimes making something leads to nothing) by Francis Alÿs from 1997. He could well be our most influential and internationally renowned Belgian artist. De Pajottenlander was responsible for the Belgian pavilion at the last Venice Biennale.
In his ’97 documentary, he pushes a large block of ice through the streets of Mexico City until it melts completely. All he leaves behind, for a moment, is a trail of water. After nine hours, the block of ice has reduced to no more than an ice cube that would fit in a whiskey glass. He can bounce it across the street without much effort. It is exactly a Sisyphus work, but in a version for the twentieth century. A fruitless effort that consumes an awful lot of energy.
Government work is becoming more and more like that man pushing a block of melting ice. Especially when it comes to the necessary reforms. About taxation, labor market and pensions. Only small blocks seem to remain. At the end of last week there seemed to be a breakthrough on the tax reform, but that turned out to be wishful thinking.
Last weekend, the ministers had a rest day on Saturday. Bilaterals followed on Sunday between Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Open Vld) and the Deputy Prime Ministers and their heads of cabinet. There was no longer a plenary session with all those involved. Today, from half past nine, the core is putting its heads together. First about the labor market, then about taxation.
The internal unrest among the Flemish and French-speaking liberals can make government work even more difficult. At MR, criticism towards chairman Georges-Louis Bouchez is increasing. The party bosses seem tired of his antics. The only thing that seems to keep him at the head of the party is the lack of a good successor. Open Vld, on the other hand, is completely devastated by the sudden departure of chairman Egbert Lachaert, who left the party without a succession scenario. Last weekend, between meetings with his ministers, De Croo looked for a replacement for his former partner de route.
Could it still be possible that this idea turns out to be just a far-fetched and above all incorrect comparison between a documentary about an ice block and life in Wetstraat? That the ministers and party chairmen can put the deep mistrust behind them and that there will be a substantial reform of taxation and the labor market? And that, eventually, they move mountains and no longer push ice blocks.
