Belgium’s general election on June 13, 1999, produced one of the greatest upheavals of the century in the country’s political landscape. It ended decades of dominance by Christian Democrat parties and meant defeat for the 12-year-old centre-left coalition led since 1991 by Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene.
Dehaene was replaced by the first Liberal prime minister in half a century, the Flemish Liberals and Democrats leader Guy Verhofstadt. The French- and Dutch-speaking Liberal parties became the country’s largest political force, after having been in third place for 80 years. Verhofstadt presided over a six-party “rainbow coalition” of Liberals, Socialists, and Greens representing Belgium’s two main language communities. Similar coalitions took office in Wallonia and Flanders after regional elections held the same day. In Flanders the government was also joined by the moderate nationalist Volksunie Party. In the third region, Brussels, the Greens remained in opposition after a dispute with their potential partners. The new federal government pledged to achieve a balanced budget by 2002, reduce taxation, and promulgate an amnesty for asylum seekers.
Dehaene’s personal popularity remained high, and the defeat of his government was partly attributable to public outrage over its handling of the year’s major crisis. In early June, a ban was imposed on domestic sales and exports of Belgian chickens, eggs and egg-based products, pork, beef, and butter after the discovery that toxic chemicals had been added to a batch of feed that was then sent to more than 1,400 farms in the country and fed to livestock. It emerged later that the government had been aware of the problem since March. Even when the food products were allowed back on the market, strict tests were kept in place for exports. The government stepped in with a compensation package of BF 20 billion (about $535 million) to prevent farmers from going out of business. In a bid to calm the public’s fears, the Liberal-led coalition announced it would establish an independent national food safety agency.
Wilfried Martens, prime minister from 1979 to 1991 and leader of the European People’s Party since 1994, decided to leave the European Parliament when he was not chosen to lead his party’s list in the June Euro-elections.
It was announced that one of the country’s major sporting events, the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, would take place for the last time in 1999. The race was to be dropped from the circuit of Formula One auto-racing events by the organizers in protest at the government’s ban on cigarette and tobacco advertising, a ban that other European Union countries were required to introduce by 2006. A subsequent arbitration-court ruling, however, determined that the event could continue with tobacco sponsorship until 2003. In May mountain climber Pascal Debrouwer fell to his death after becoming the first Belgian to reach the summit of Mt. Everest without oxygen.
The year ended on a joyful note with the wedding on December 4 of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Philippe, to Mathilde d’Udekem d’Acoz. (See Biographies.) If her husband eventually succeeds to the throne, the bride will be the first queen of the Belgians to have actually come from the country. The union offered something for each of Belgium’s three regions; the bride descended from a long line of Flemish nobility, the d’Udekem d’Acoz family had lived in Wallonia for four decades, and the wedding took place in Brussels. Another high note occurred at the Cannes Film Festival when a Belgian film, the low-budget Rosetta by brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, was awarded the Palme d’Or—Belgium’s first win in 52 years.