co-governing of a country by two language groups that have both received far-reaching degrees of autonomy. Yet after the federal elections of 2010 Belgium rapidly lost its model status. It took no less than 18 months to put together a new federal government – a world record that will be difficult to break – because parties of the French speaking south and of the Dutch speaking north were not able to find the necessary compromise on internal language boundaries and on the distribution of competences and fiscal powers for the substates.
One might therefore add Belgium to the list of failed ethno-federations. Yet that raises the question of the criterion to be used to distinguish between failure and success. The outcome of the long political crisis in Belgium was the formation of a new federal coalition government, and an agreement on a sixth constitutional reform that was subsequently accepted by a two-thirds majority in the parliament and by a majority of the representatives of each of the two language groups. The Belgian ethno-federation is indeed also a consensus model that requires the two language groups to govern together or not to govern at all. The consequence of that – the price to pay – is a widely shared frustration. It is frustration because political battles can never be fully won. It is frustration because compromises result in institutional complexities that are difficult to explain. It is frustration because electoral promises can never be fully met. Compared to violent conflict though, this accumulation of frustration does not seem to be an extremely high price. It might even be seen as being the very essence of democratic governance.
There was a time when the ‘Belgian model’ was a potential source of inspiration for a resolution of the Cyprus problem. And yet while the details of the Belgian constitution might today not be the first source of inspiration, a settlement of the Cyprus problem is quite likely to be some sort of ethno-federation. It will then be confronted with the paradox. It can be the beginning of further tensions, or it can pacify the conflict. One outcome is perfectly predictable though: the federal-type solution will fuel frustration. Yet frustration (and being able to live with it) because the settlement is not perfect is – as said – the very essence of democratic government.
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