Philips va mettre un terme à la production de téléviseurs dans son usine de Bruges ; 191 des 475 travailleurs de l'usine perdront ainsi leur emploi. La production de téléviseurs haut de gamme (le Cinema 21:9 super large et l'Aurea) sera délocalisée, principalement vers la Hongrie. L'usine produisait 750 téléviseurs par jour; le service de recherche et développement, qui emploie de nombreux ingénieurs, restera à Bruges, mais les syndicats craignent qu'il ne parte bientôt lui aussi à l'étranger. Le département télévision fait partie de la division Consumer Lifestyle du groupe et représente un chiffre d'affaires d'environ 6 milliards d'euros, mais ne réalise que de très modestes marges de 3 %. Aujourd'hui, Philips mise surtout sur les soins de santé, qui représentent le secteur le plus profitable. Les licenciements de Bruges ont lieu six mois à peine après les 800 licenciements du département Lighting de Turnhout. Dans la fin des années 1980, Philips employait encore 18 672 personnes en Belgique, un chiffre qui est aujourd'hui retombé à 3.614. Un jour Philips Bruges fut la plus grande usine de téléviseurs du monde, avec une production d'un million d'appareils par an.

C'est hier que le musée Marc Sleen, situé rue des Sables à Bruxelles, a été officiellement inauguré en présence du roi Albert et de Marc Sleen lui-même. Implanté face au centre belge de la bande dessinée, il a pris ses quartiers dans l'ancienne rédaction du quotidien La Cité, un bâtiment art déco classé. Il se trouve aussi dans la rue ou le dessinateur a créé les premières pages de son personnage fétiche, Néron. Avec Bob et Bobette, celui-ci a marqué la bande dessinée de la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle en Flandre. La BD paraissait d'abord chaque jour dans le quotidien Het Volk, puis dans De Standaard et Het Nieuwsblad jusqu'en 2002. Néron, bon vivant impénitent, est entouré d'une brochette d'autres héros connus de tous les Flamands : Mme Pheip, Adhémar, le détective Fouché, Bambou et Boulette etc. Outre Néron, Sleen est aussi l'auteur d'affiches politiques ou de dessins réalisés à l'occasion du tour de France ; c'était aussi un grand amateur de safari. C'est la première fois que les pouvoirs publics contribuent à la création d'un musée et d'archives pour un dessinateur belge. En effet, la région bruxelloise a investi 500 000 euros dans l'achat et la rénovation des locaux.

The Flemish formateur will forge an alliance between Christian democrats, socialists and Flemish nationalists.

In northern Afghanistan some thirty Belgian soldiers have come under fire from Taliban insurgents linked to al Qaeda.

The Brussels Region has postponed the start of the procedure that should have led to the protection of the Brussels landmark.

Flemish formateur Kris Peeters has decided to form a government comprising of CD&V Christian democrats, N-VA Flemish nationalists and SP.A socialists. He sidelined the Open VLD liberals after both the N-VA and SP.A stated during talks yesterday they did not intend entering a government in which a fourth party will be unnecessary when it comes to constituting a majority. Although the liberals had accepted the formateur's negotiating memorandum without too many objections, N-VA chairman Bart De Wever forced Peeters to make a choice yesterday after the former refused to launch talks involving four parties, says De Standaard newspaper. De Wever feared a scenario in which the fourth party would be dumped at some stage during the governemt's term of office. On paper, there is no reason why it would not have been, as three parties already made up a majority. Moreover, he objected to cooperating with the Open VLD after it had launched a number of vicious broadsides against the Flemish nationalists in recent years. Then, a little later, SP.A chair Caroline Gennez also voiced her party's objections to a governing coalition of four. Peeters consulted with CD&V chair Marianne Thyssen and then took the plunge, bringing Open-VLD chairman Guy Verhofstadt the message that he was not invited to share the negotiations next Monday. This has left the Christian democrats as perhaps the only party governing at both federal and Flemish level. Federal Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy had also pled with Peeters that he include the liberals in the Flemish government for the sake of stability, as the Open VLD were his sole Flemish governing partner at federal level. Peeters can now attribute the fact that he brushed aside this argument to the position adopted by the N-VA (and the SP.A), says De Standaard.

Federal Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy (CD&V) is getting exactly what he didn't want. Although he has never made any official statements on the formation of the Flemish, Walloon and Brussels governments, it remains an open secret that behind the scenes he pushed - certainly within his own party circles - for regional coalitions that are more or less similar to the federal coalition. So, on the Flemish side he wanted a liberal and Christian democrat government, while on the francophone side he wanted the same plus socialists. The Flemish liberals actively supported him in that wish and, for a little while, federal Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel De Gucht (Open VLD) even threatened that the party would 'be a part of all governments or none', although it soon emerged that that was not the official party line. Today it is evident that nobody listened to the prime minister. If any common trend has been witnessed post-07 June, it's that the regional governments have been forged without liberals, and it is only the Flemish delegation to the Brussels Region government that counts liberals amongst its members. The most significant consequence for Van Rompuy of the liberals being sidelined regionally is that the liberal members of his own government will now work hard to profile themselves, believes Het Nieuwsblad newspaper. This means that in matters such as asylum and migration they will stubbornly maintain their position, while they will fight tooth and nail against an increase in taxes to balance the federal budget. They will also be difficult to budge when it comes to state reform transferring budgets and powers from federal level to the regional governments, simply because they are not a part of those regional governments. And, last but not least, the chance of finding a solution to the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde issue is now as good as zero, with resistance from the MR's radical francophone FDF wing becoming stronger than ever.

The Open VLD announced through a press communiqué yesterday that it did not intend stepping down from the federal government. That would have paved the way to early federal elections, which would be a nightmare for the liberals under the present circumstances, given the fact they would almost certainly suffer a fresh walloping at the polls. But the fact that the party are going to make life difficult for Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy seems a given, although they are officially saying that 'stability and jobs for the people' are its biggest concerns, irrespective of whether it is in the majority or the opposition. This constructive-attitude-in-spite-of-everything is the course mapped out by Guy Verhofstadt in the aftermath of the election defeat on 07 June. Verhofstadt wants his party to shed the quarrelsome image it has built up and to keep internal bickering out of the public eye. After saving his party from utter humiliation through personally garnering huge returns on the European list, he is now taking on the thankless task of acting chairman in the wake of Bart Somers' resignation. De Standaard newspaper believes Verhofstadt's foremost aspiration remains a European posting, such as liberal parliamentary leader in the European Parliament, which is why his successor at the Brussels Open VLD headquarters is already a subject of discussion. Whoever becomes the new chairman can expect a tough time. Not only will he have to build up the party's credibility once more, he will also have to lead the difficult task of being in the opposition in the Flemish parliament while being bound hand and foot to his ministers who help shape policy at federal level.

It has emerged from a study by Antwerp University's Centre for Social Policy that a single woman needs 976 Euros a month to have a decent standard of living in Flanders, while a couple would need 1,295 Euros. The figures are based on a package of goods and services considered essential to fulfil 'a social role' in Flemish society. They comprise foodstuffs, clothing, healthcare, housing, security, mobility and relaxation. The study demonstrates that the statutory living wage of 725 Euros for a single person is actually 250 Euros under the minimum budget required. And the discrepancy only grows proportional to the number of children in a family. For a family with two older children, the subsistance allowance is no less than 67 percent below the minimum budget required. That's because children are primarily responsible for the minimum budget increasing, especially as they get older. The budget standard for a single mother with a two-year-old son is 1,274 Euros, while a single mother with two daughters of two and fifteen requires 1,874 Euros a month. The necessary additional costs per child increase from 259 to 564 Euros as the child ages, while a child at secondary school is twice as expensive as one of two years old.

The Study Committee for the Ageing Population has calculated that costs related to the ageing of the population will consume an average of 8.2 percent of the gross domestic product between 2008 and 2060. In absolute numbers that comes out at approximately 28 billion Euros per annum. Until 2014, these costs will amount to only 3.2 percent of the GDP, or some 11 billion Euros. Over and above this, the financial crisis has eaten up another 1.9 percent of the budget, given the downturn in the GDP and the dramatic increase in unemployment. Until last year the Committee for the Ageing Population pushed for the creation of budgetary reserves, but this has become an unrealistic option due to the financial crisis and the budget deficit. Cutting back on expenditure for the elderly - pensions and healthcare insurance - is not an option either, the committee says, because one in five retirees then run the risk of ending up in poverty. That same risk is only applicable to one in 25 of the working population. And so the only solution left is to have ageing people continue to work longer, says the committee. Doing this will mean a two-fold advantage - the economy and contributions to social security will grow, and the longer the elderly work, the less they will cost. At present only 27 percent of people between 55 and 65 work. Should 51 percent of that age group be employed, as is the case in the Scandinavian countries, then the costs to the state budget will already be down seven percent.

Flanders will be allocated 1.5 billion Euros less this year by the federal state than it was last year. This 8.3 percent decrease is primarily due to the financial crisis. Since the Lambermont Agreement, regional appropriation has been dependent on economic growth and inflation. The federal authorities will be allocating a total of 28.5 billion Euros to the regions and communities this year, with 16.8 billion Euros going to Flanders, 7.61 billion Euros going to the French Community, another 3.30 billion Euros to the Walloon Region and 0.8 billion for the Brussels Region. Wallonia, Brussels and the French Community are to lose seven percent in total. The crisis means the collective allocations for the regions and communities will only exceed 30 billion Euros once again in 2011. The money allocated by the state aside, Flanders also receives a fifth of its income from regional taxes, such as property and inheritance taxes, registration fees and motor vehicle taxes.

Imaging technologies company Agfa-Gevaert wants to cut 120 million Euros in operational costs by 2010. And so management has proposed that the company's 1,350 blue-collar employees surrender three percent of their net wages (amounting to ten percent of the wage costs), that the collective bus transport be dropped, a number of shift work bonuses be standardised and the pension plan be overhauled. In return, management promised there would be no mass layoffs either this year or the next. But the proposal has been rejected by the workers in a referendum. Talks between management and the trade unions continue, but Agfa is already threatening engaging unilateral measures if a settlement cannot be found. An agreement was reached in early April with the 2,500 white-collar workers and senior employees to surrender ten percent of their salaries over a 20-month period. A legal distinction is made between blue- and white-collar workers in Belgium.

The Flemish formateur will forge an alliance between Christian democrats, socialists and Flemish nationalists.

The Belgian and Dutch judicial authorities have dismantled a major international drugs cartel operating in the Low Countries and the UK.

Radio colleague Jef Lambrecht was detained while trying to make reports on the rioting after the re-election of Ahmadinejad.

Belgian health authorities have confirmed 3 new cases of Mexican flu, bringing the total to 17 across the country.

The Belgian music rights organisation Sabam is set to invoice day-care centres that play music to the children in their charge.

During open house at the Flemish blood transfusion centres a record number of donors showed up.

EU leaders are gathered in Brussels for a half-yearly summit. Angry dairy farmers, protesting against the low milk prices, are occupying Brussels for the second consecutive day. Police clashed with the protesting farmers.

European elections took place one week ago, on 7 June. TV Brussels gives a short round up of the seat distribution for Belgian MEPs.