November 24, 1991 went down in Belgian history as Black Sunday. That day, a little-known far-right party, Vlaams Blok, swept voters in the north of the country with its anti-immigration and pro-Flanders independence speech.
Shocked, the rest of the parties agreed to keep them out of any government coalition through a cordon sanitaire that for more than 30 years has prevented the extreme right from coming to power. That has been his greatest achievement. His worst defect, not having stopped his growth.
On June 9, Belgium holds federal and regional elections, as well as European elections, and the Vlaams Belang – as it renamed itself after the original group was banned in 2004 for racism – will probably achieve the best result in its history.
The polls predict that it could go from the 19% of the votes it had in Flanders in 2019 to almost 30%, which would make it the most powerful party in the rich Dutch-speaking region thanks to the collapse of Bart de’s N-VA. Wever and Jan Jambon, Carles Puigdemont’s allies in Europe. Together they could have the majority in the Flemish parliament, an unprecedented situation that causes cold sweats in the south of the country and raises a few questions.
The first: Will the cordon sanitaire in Flanders be blown up? “This is what these elections are fundamentally about,” says political scientist Nicolas Bouteca, associate professor at Ghent University. “It is difficult to predict but there is no doubt that there have never been as many possibilities as now. A part of the N-VA is open to it and there can be a lot of pressure to do it.”
That the objective of both parties is the independence of Flanders adds an extra degree of tension to the debate but we must not lose sight, he emphasizes, that their strategies to achieve it are very different.
“The Vlaams Belang is in favor of the Catalan route. What he proposes is to declare independence from the Parliament of Flanders,” explains Bouteca. On the other hand, the N-VA, despite its support for Puigdemont, defends negotiation and rather aspires to transform Belgium into a confederal state.
“They are a conservative party and, as such, they do not like revolutions. They do not believe that this strategy, as has been seen in Catalonia, is going to work. They defend negotiating with French speakers in the federal parliament to obtain more autonomy. “They don’t believe it can be achieved any other way.”
“Flemish people have less love for Belgium than fear of adventure,” agrees Stefaan Walgrave, professor of Politics at the University of Antwerp. But Belgian politics is a convoluted game of balance and, depending on the exact outcome of June 9, the N-VA may face a “diabolical dilemma,” he says, about how to realize its independence dream: “Be part of the next federal government and negotiating a state reform, why should they not agree with Vlaams Belang in Flanders? Or sign up for the confrontational strategy of the Vlaams Belang?”
De Wever has warned that, if his party is not included in the federal government this time either, an alliance with the extreme right in Flanders could be considered. But, even if they are part of the next coalition, in reality, there is little chance of agreeing on the major state reform that the N-VA is asking for, which will increase the pressure in favor of agreeing with Vlaams Belang. “There is a part of the N-VA that has the feeling that it is now or never,” adds Walgrave
At the Belgian level, there is no doubt that the cordon will remain and Vlaams Belang will not be part of the next federal government. For principles and because no French-speaking party is in favor of the division of Belgium. Furthermore, while Flanders has done nothing but turn to the right, both Wallonia and Brussels are moving to the left. There, the Socialist Party against whom it must defend its traditional hegemony is against the PTB, of Marxist orientation.
They call it “the Belgian paradox”: to such an extent are Flanders and Wallonia independent political spheres that the extreme right in French-speaking Belgium is non-existent. This situation is no consolation for Nina Henkens, coordinator of the anti-racism platform Kif kif. The social reaction to the rise of the far right is “not at all” like what has been seen recently in Germany, she laments.
“The extreme right is very normalized in Flanders. The problem is that other political parties take part in their ideas and extremist discourse,” especially on immigration, and “the media treats Vlaams Belang as if it were just another party. That is why there is so little opposition to fascism.”
Justice does not let its guard down. A judge has just sentenced a former Vlaams Belang deputy, Dries Van Langenhove, to one year in prison for violating the law on racism and denialism, the same one that banned the original party. He had founded a far-right youth association, Schild
Far from distancing himself from him, the leader of Vlaams Belang, Tom van Grieken, assures that he is a “victim” of a political process. The conviction is “good news” for Henkens, although he admits that “racism cannot be fought alone in the courts, the whole of society must get involved.” For now, June 9 will once again be a black Sunday.