Click here to read the full interview in French.
New Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo is expected to be an advocate of federalism at the EU leadership summit, says Delwit, one of the outstanding commentators of the complicated political life of his country.
But this would be a "well understood federalism", as Belgium would not accept the transfer of power to "undemocratically elected agencies" without possible recourse to political influence.
Delwit called "completely surrealist" the situation with the European Central Bank, which has discretely helped bail out several eurozone countries by buying their debt on the secondary market.
He said that the newly formed Belgian government would agree to go forward in shaping Europe in a more federal fashion, but not in a logic of transfer of power to agencies.
Belgium "has always been partisan of a federalist, rather than intergovernmental approach, but a number of political players consider that going forward also implies maintaining political primacy, in opposition to agencies or technocrats without democratic control," he said.
Asked by EurActiv if credit rating agencies, one of which recently downgraded the country, helped spur the formation of a cabinet after a 541-day political stalemate, he said:
"I wouldn't say they contributed, as downgrading could be hardly seen as a contribution. But it is clear that this has been a factor which pushed the [process] to advance."
Asked if Di Rupo, who is leader of the Walloon Socialist Party, wouldn't be isolated among many other EU leaders affiliated with centre-right parties, Delwit admitted that the new Belgian prime minister would indeed be in such a situation.
However, Delwit emphasised that Belgian has a political culture of working with coalition parties, stressing that the Belgian socialists have a long tradition of being in government with "Christian Democrats". Indeed, the Walloon and Flemish socialist parties have for may years been in government led by Flemish CD&V Christian Democrat prime ministers, the lasts ones being Yves Leterme and Herman Van Rompuy.
Asked if the Belgian negotiating skills used for forming a government in a difficult internal context could be used in a Europe-wide context, he also mentioned the names of the liberal ALDE group leader Guy Verhofstadt and the President of the European People's Party Wilfried Martens, both former Belgian prime ministers, as a further proof that the country could offer a lot in terms of European troubleshooting.
Speaking about Belgium, where a condition for agreeing on a government has been the reform of the state and a re-balance of powers between the Flemish and Walloon regions, he warned that the country was not yet rid of its internal problems.
"We will have of course to implement state reform, but we know that this reform would only diminish the polarity of views between the French-speaking and the Dutch-speaking, without eliminating it," he said.
COMMENTS
"Belgium believes that.."
It seems a smart guy but it is ONE persons opinion
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