In a way, this is logical. Gemeentekrediet, the deposit bank from which Dexia originates, was founded by a liberal politician in the 19th century. It provided loans (krediet) to the municipalities (gemeenten), which other banks would not give them. The funding came from the public, who took their savings to Gemeentekrediet. The sole shareholders were the municipalities; the board was made up by their representatives.

By the end of the 20th century, banking had changed a great deal. But the political representatives were still there, at Dexia Bank Belgium and the Communal Holding, its shareholder. For the traditional parties (Christian-democrats, socialists, liberals), a place at the Dexia board became something with which they could buy support. Knowledge of banking was not required, it was used as a reward, as a trade-off or as a consolation prize.

Looking back, we see names such as Patrick Janssens (mayor of Antwerp), Karel De Gucht (European commissioner), Frank Beke (former mayor of Ghent) and Wivina Demeester (former minister). De Gucht recently declared that he took his tasks at Dexia very seriously and even warned about some dodgy take-overs. But he was often told: “What does someone who is not a banker know about this?”

At the Communal Holding, a remnant of Gemeentekrediet’s original shareholder structure, mis-management was rife. The board members were only interested in the profits, used to boost their communes’ budgets. For this reason they even agreed to buy more Dexia shares using money leant… by Dexia. “We only did what the federal government asked us to do,” said Jef Gabriëls, former mayor of Genk, last week. “No-one saw anything wrong with it at the time ”.

So where has this lead us? The Belgian-French Dexia no longer exists, Dexia Bank Belgium has become a state-owned bank, and the Communal Holding has been liquidated rather than declared bankrupt. Parties such as Groen! and N-VA, who never were involved in any of this, demand a parliamentary commission to look into everyone’s responsibility. But the traditional parties, all of them implicated in some way, stave this off.

Meanwhile, the communes and federal and regional governments have found an agreement on who will foot the Communal Holding bill. And guess who will? The taxpayers, of course. Let’s hope they are represented well.