URL: Latest posts
Mission Accomplished
NEW
Hi dear readers, The ambition of this blog was to present the political parties and their lead candidates running for the European elections 2009 in Belgium. Mission accomplished. I’m now busy working on another project and so won’t be bl...
30 year anniversary of EP elections sees no celebration
NEW
Read my final “Campaign Watcher” blog post for VRT Flandersnews website – Where now for the European Parliament?
European election results for Belgian parties
NEW
View European results for Belgium and new seat allocations here http://polling2009.belgium.be/en/eur/seat/seat_EUR00000.html PS, SP.A., Vlaams Belang, MR have all lost one seat. Ecolo has gained one. LDD gets in for the first time with one seat.
Will your elected MEP actually sit ?
NEW
People always complain that voters confuse local / regional / national issues with European issues. Hence, the disastrous result for the PES Party of European Socialists, as Martin Schulz (President) testified last night in a press conference. The lo...
Note on the Regional Results
NEW
While waiting for the European election results to come in (starting at 10pm tonight), here’s a little note on the major winners and losers of the Regional elections for the Flemish, Wallonia, and Bruxelles Capitale Parliaments as results come...
Sunday 7 June
NEW
7 June 7 June 7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7 June7...
Who should you vote for ?
NEW
They say ‘Be careful what you wish for’. I’d say ‘Be careful who you vote for’. Moving beyond conceptual ideals, here is my round-up of what the various parties propose in terms of concrete ambitions. So, where do you want Belgium and the E...
How do you vote ?
NEW
How do you vote ? All voting in Brussels’ 19 communes is electronic. In Wallonia and Flanders, some communes use electronic voting, others paper. Here, I’m going to describe the process for electronic voting. How do you vote? Voting takes p...
Medecins Sans Frontieres doctor is model of CDH’s humanist principles
NEW
Senator Anne Delvaux, former RTBF presenter (Belgium’s Francophone public service TV) heads the European list for CDH, the Centre Democrate Humaniste party. Although Delvaux has indicated she will sit in the European Parliament if elected, she...
N-VA: No future for Belgium; Flanders should be an independent EU nation state
NEW
Architect Frieda Brepoels, No 1 on the N-VA list for the European elections, positions the party as “the only Flemish European party in Flanders”. They do not see a future for ‘Belgium’, and look enviously at small states in E...
Flanders’ most powerful politician, CD&V No. 1 Jean Luc Dehaene
NEW
Jean-Luc Dehaene, currently MEP and No. 1 on the European list for Flemish Christian Democrat party CD&V, is a former Belgian Prime Minister (1992-1999), and as Vice-President of the Convention on the Future of Europe, one of the key shapers of...
Guest blogging for VRT Flandersnews www.redactie.be
NEW
For the last 3 weeks before Election Day, 7 June, I am one of three invited guest-bloggers on the VRT / Flanders News / European Elections 09 website. The three “Campaign Watchers” are myself, long-time Belgian resident and British author...
Two liberal ladies. A media babe and a Grande Dame.
NEW
Two Liberal ladies. 1 media babe, 1 Grande dame. It’s the turn of sister parties Mouvement Reformateur (Francophone) and Open VLD (Flemish) to convince me why I should vote for them. Frederique Ries, a former TV and radio journalist for Luxembour...
Find your party options here
NEW
Watch out ! A new website has been launched. By the Belgian Federal Ministry of the Interior. In English. It’s a great idea – amassing together a lot of info, stats, party lists, candidates details, 2004 results, this June’s resul...
Socialist euro candidates for PS and SP.A
NEW
Jean Claude Marcourt, Parti Socialiste No. 1 candidate at the European Elections, is from outside Liege, and now lives in the city of Liege. He studied Law at the University of Liege, and is a member of the Bar. From 1992, he stopped practising law,...
Former EC / EP official and Belgian judo coach lead the ‘alternative choice’ party
NEW
Lijst Dedecker, a 2 year old populist liberal party led by a former Belgian national Judo champion Jean-Marie Dedecker, has recruited a former journalist and European Commission temporary agent as its leading euro candidate – Derk Jan Eppink. Af...
Irish in Belgium are immigrants, says Vlaams Belang
NEW
An Irish person in Belgium is an immigrant, says Vlaams Belang (VB). Breaching the ‘cordon sanitaire’ of the Belgian media blackout, I was a little apprehensive going to meet MEP Philip Claeys, euro candidate for the Vlaams Belang political part...
European Army
NEW
Guy Verhofstadt loves a European army. So much so, he insisted on it as a priority three times in a Belgian TV debate held at the European Parliament today. European army…..European army……European army…. His opposite number, J...
RIP Parlorama
NEW
RIP Parlorama, the e-tool that annoyed MEPs. Grading MEPs with a thumbs up, thumbs down, and gold stars, it stirred up such a commotion that the site www.parlorama.eu was forced to close down within 36 hours of launch, due to the number of compla...
