Belgian vote on burqa ban in doubt as government risks collapse

BRUSSELS - A parliamentary vote that would have turned Belgium into the first European country to ban the wearing of the burqa and other types of Islamic veil risked being cancelled Thursday, as the country’s government was nearing collapse.

The lower house of parliament was expected to approve a law making it a crime to be out “in public places with their face completely or partly covered or masked, so that they are no longer identifiable”.

But the vote looked likely to be postponed as the parliamentary agenda Thursday was set to be dominated by a row over the splitting of an electoral district around the country’s capital Brussels.

Belgium is divided between the Dutch-speaking majority and the French-speaking minority. They are bitterly at odds over the question of who should have more political rights over Brussels, a largely French-speaking city in Dutch-speaking territory.

One of the five parties that support Prime Minister Yves Leterme’s government, the Flemish liberals of the Open Vld, insist that a vote be held Thursday on the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (BHV) district, despite the fact that no agreement has been found on the re-drawing of its boundaries.

The other four coalition members - the socialist PS, the liberals MR and the christian democrats Cdh from the francophone part of the country, as well as the Flemish christian democrats CD&V - are calling for more time to find a compromise.

If the Open Vld were to pull out of the coalition over the issue, the government would technically still have a majority in the parliament, with 76 out of 150 deputies.

However, all politicians say it would be politically impossible for Leterme to hold on in office with the support of only one Flemish-speaking party, because it would leave the Francophones in a domineering position.

On the other hand, several commentators have stressed that a governmental crisis would seriously endanger the country’s upcoming presidency of the European Union, which starts July 1 for a six-months term.

“How will we look in front of Europe if we were to chair it without a government in office,” former Belgian premier Wilfried Martens, a Flemish christian democrat, told Thursday’s edition of the De Morgen newspaper.