Vande Lanotte was born in Poperinge in West Flanders in 1955, though he's now associated more with Ostend, where he's been an ordinary municipal councillor since 1995, and where he backs the local basketball team BC Oostende. That sort of lowly public service is important in Belgian politics, where politicians are expected to maintain their ties with the grassroots. That's why high-rollers like justice minister Stefaan Declerck is also mayor of Kortrijk, and former foreign minister Karel De Gucht, now European commissioner, is still nominally a council member in Berlare.

Vande Lanotte took a master's in social and political science in Antwerp summa cum laude in 1978, and added a master's in law from the Free University of Brussels (VUB) in 1981. His doctorate is in jurisprudence, and in gaining it he worked not only at the Council of Europe, but also the Swiss Institute for Comparative Law, and universities in Leiden, Quebec and Amsterdam.

Since then, he has built parallel careers in academia and politics. In the former, he is a part-time professor at the VUB, and a full professor at Ghent university, teaching public law, with specialisms in human rights and constitutional law. He also publishes regularly, sits on the board of scholarly journals and attends international colloquia. Freya Van den Bossche, Flemish minister responsible for energy and housing, is a graduate of Vande Lanotte's Ghent class.

In politics, he's been to the top. Currently socialist party SP.A leader in the Senate, he's also been party chairman, North Sea minister, budget minister and interior minister from 1994 to 1998, when he was forced to resign - along with Stefaan Declerck at justice - when Marc Dutroux escaped from custody for three hours before being recaptured by a forest ranger.

Such senior political experience, together with his knowledge of budgetary matters and his academic concentration on institutional affairs, ought to stand him in good stead in his attempts to bring the negotiating parties together. But his street-fighter looks will also play a role. He's said to read poetry in bed, but his ringtone is AC/DC's Highway to Hell. His interlocutors in the coming weeks will need to be careful to ensure they get the one, and not the other.