20.1. Support for Separatism

At party political level, only the Vlaams Blok advocates the separation of Flanders from Belgium. At the last elections, this party gained about 16% of the votes in Flanders. Karel Dillen , founder of the Vlaams Blok, made sure that during his presidency, Flemish independence stayed one of the major issues in the party. The Volksunie still believes in a confederal system, in Belgium, though some members do ventilate opinions close to separatism. The other parties favour the status quo, but within each party you can find both members advocating more autonomy for Flanders as well as members longing for the old Belgique à papa. New are the tendencies in social-economical circles in favour of separatism. These tendencies are caused by a perceived immobilism at the Walloon socialists towards cuts in the social security. In the longer run, it could be that this mechanism turns out to be the most important factor in breaking up Belgium.

For the non-party political organizations, a vast majority of the pro-Flemish organizations seems to have taken the step towards separatism. This includes the Davidsfonds, the Taal Actie Comité (TAK, Language Action Committee), and in fact almost all the organizations joined in the Overlegcentrum van Vlaamse Verenigingen (OVV, Deliberation Centre of Flemish Organizations). The Vlaamse Volksbeweging (VVB, Flemish People's Movement) is playing the role of the pioneer here. There's only one exception, and this is the IJzerbedevaartcomité (Committee of the Pilgrimage to the Yser), favouring the confederal system, but this organization very recently came under attack by a dissident group in its ranks, radically in favour of separatism and pleaing for joining the other pro-Flemish organizations in the OVV.

Poll of August 1996

A poll (cfr Table 5 ), held in August 1996 by Field Research and asked for by the Walloon newspaper La Nouvelle Gazette, showed that 34.5% of the Flemish favoured separatism. In Wallonia, only 22.4% wanted separatism, whereas in Brussel 24.5% were in favour of it. A majority of 59.6% of the Flemish supported federalism, the current political system in Belgium, and in the whole of Belgium, this figure lays at 56.2% Only 5.9% of the Flemish want to go back to old unitarism, but in Belgium, this is 14.4% because more than 20% of the Walloons and almost 30% in Brussel favours this system. Figure 5 and Figure 6 give an overview of the situation.

Figure 5 - Support for separatism, divided per state form

Figure 6 - Support for separatism, devided per Region

At a first glance, the support for separatism seems to be rather small, but at the time of this poll, the end of August 1996, there were no particular communautarian problems in Belgium. If a serious conflict would erupt, a majority in favour of separatism in Flanders may be found very quickly. Also, it is striking that people in Brussel seem to be favouring unitarism so much. Unfortunately, there was no question about confederalism included in the poll.

State form Flanders Wallonia Brussels Belgium

Separatism 34,5 % 22,4 % 24,5 % 29,4 %

Federalism 59,6 % 54,7 % 47,1 % 56,2 %

Unitarism 5,9 % 22,9 % 28,4 % 14,4 %

Table 5 - Poll held by Field Research asked for by La Nouvelle Gazette. 1,000 Belgians were interrogated at the end of August, 1996, resulting in an error margin of 3%.