King Boudouin’s hasty return to Brussels from his honeymoon at Seville is a measure of the seriousness of the nation-wide strike in Belgium. There are at the moment no signs of the strike, already two weeks old, ending in a hurry. The non-participation of the Catholic trade unions — in deference to the Belgian Primate, Cardinal Van Roen’s appeal — does not appear to have made any difference to the serious nature of the strike. On the other hand the attitude of the Catholics seems to have divided the entire nation into two well-defined groups similar to the division in 1950 when the Catholics supported the return of King Leopold III and the Socialists opposed it vehemently. The present strike is a result of the Catholic Prime Minister, M. Gaston Eysken’s emergency bill in Parliament proposing a steep rise in taxation and harsh cuts in social benefits on the ground that the nation has to offset the losses suffered in the Congo. Admittedly, the Belgian losses in the Congo were of a sizable order but that is not the only reason behind the proposals for austerity. For, even before Belgium conceded independence to the Congo, the economy of the country was coasting dangerously close to the rocks. Apart from its contribution to the NATO, Belgium’s balance of trade position has been worsening in the last five years. Belgium lives almost entirely on its foreign trade. As much as forty per cent of the nation’s production is sold abroad. Although there has been a gradual increase in Belgium’s export earnings they have not been able to keep pace with the simultaneous rise in imports. In fact the imports continue to outstrip the exports. The resulting unfavourable balance has been causing some anxiety to Belgium ever since 1955. Added to it is the fact that the Catholic Prime Minister of the Catholic-Liberal coalition Government did not prepare the country to live within its means after the liquidation of the Congo colony. The present strike seems to suggest that the Belgian Government either did not anticipate correctly the economic consequences of conceding independence to the Congo or — and this is more likely — took it for granted that the Belgians would continue to remain masters of the Congolese economy for years to come. The argument of the Socialists against the austerity measures is that they will reduce south and central Belgium into “an economic desert.” While the Socialists are vehemently opposed to the Government’s proposals, the Liberals in the coalition Government are not entirely in favour of the emergency bill in its present form. Therefore, one cannot see how the present Government can continue to stay in office for long and it is equally difficult to see how any other Government — a Socialist Government for that matter — can run the country without introducing austerity measures similar to those now proposed; unless, of course, that Government pulls out of the NATO and abandons the traditional compulsory military training.
December 31, 1960.
