Belgian elections, unlike the British elections which took place last week, are run on a form of proportional representation. Parties present lists of candidates to the voters, who may choose a whole list or vote for the individuals on it.
The formation of the lists is of supreme importance to politicians because one’s position on the list more or less determines one’s chances of being elected. If a party is expected to pick up four seats, for example, then the fifth person on the list has a slim chance of being elected, but the sixth does not.
Leterme himself will not be returning to Wetstraat 16, the office of the prime minister. Before the elections were even officially announced, his party, CD&V, said he would be leading the list for the chamber in West Flanders, his home province. Leading the national senate list will be party chair Marianne Thyssen.
As Anja Otte explains in this week’s “Fifth Column”, Leterme may have jumped to avoid being pushed, and the withdrawal means he will not face the indignity of seeing his impressive vote tally from 2007 vanish like mist over the polders.
The King’s decision came after a weekend of attempts by the King, and later for a short time by his appointed negotiator, vice prime minister Didier Reynders, to fathom out where the various parties stood. The final decision last Monday makes it clear there was no room for agreement. The voter will almost certainly now decide.
As Flanders Today went to press, federal mobility minister Etienne Schouppe confirmed that the ban would continue until at least 20.00 on Monday. In Charleroi, Ryanair announced it would not be flying until Wednesday at the earliest.
Brussels Airlines announced that it would not be operating flights until midday on Tuesday, at the earliest. The company said the ash-cloud emergency had cost it “millions per day”, including reimbursement of tickets for cancelled flights and hotel costs for stranded passengers.
The figures represent the first upward swing since the global economic crisis started. In addition, the upturn is described by the VDAB as “very abrupt”. Whereas in January and February there was still no sign of an increase in jobs, the total jumped in March by more than 25,000, to 37,903 new jobs.
The VDAB reacted with caution, however: “There is no reason for euphoria because we’re comparing with figures from the middle of the crisis. This is just a signal that the economy is slowly recovering.”
Narrowing, or stenosis, of the aortic valve is one of the most common heart problems faced by older people, with an estimated 4% of those aged over 65 affected. The solution is replacement of the valve, requiring open-heart surgery. For the patients at Middelheim, that was no longer an option, given their age and condition. Instead, the surgeons decided to implant the so-called percutaneous aortic valve (PAV), which is brought into the heart through an artery after being introduced through a simple puncture in an artery in the groin.
As anyone who uses it knows, the Brussels Ring road has reached, and sometimes exceeded, the limits of its capacity. The Flemish government has commissioned the Flemish Traffic Centre (VVC) to carry out a study, which has not been reticent in giving its imagination full rein. Some of the ideas being considered:
• widening the Ring between the E19 interchange at Machelen and the Sint-Stevens-Woluwe A3 interchange, up to a maximum width in some places of 17 lanes
The main reason is the behaviour of the Belgian consumer, who is more likely to choose more expensive products compared to shoppers in neighbouring countries; the so-called “first price” products, the cheapest available, are much less likely to be bought here. This raises the average price for a representative shopping basket in the case of the Belgian shopper.
The two men, who were reported as speaking Italian, posed as policemen to gain entry to the home of Pankaj Maldar, an Indian who heads the Antwerp diamond traders Karp Impex. After resisting for hours, he was forced to go to his office while the gang stood guard over his family – a so-called “tiger kidnapping”. The robbery took place on Friday, 5 March, but only became known after news leaked out on the website of The Times of India.
Unions feared the cuts were only the beginning and immediately announced strike action that saw all Carrefour stores closed and picketed at the weekend. Politicians condemned the French group’s decision and called for a viable social plan to deal with laid-off workers. Unions promised “a long and hard fight” to oppose closures.
“For six months I’ve been holding our stores up to the light,” said company CEO Gérard Lavinay. “The stores we have marked for closure could not be saved; the cancer was too deep. Nothing short of a doubling of turnover could offer any hope.”
Flanders Today is a 
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