http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8367589.stm

Today, Europe, tomorrow, the world?

Heh heh, president of the European Council is not a very dominant position, though. It is basically the concept of "primus inter pares".

Well, what more can I say? He was one of the most obvious choices, being from the EPP and from a small country, having not an egotistical, dominant personality, so he's barely a surprise.

If Hakker is anything to go by, we should be afraid, for a mad man has taken the helm.

Nah, relax.. The mad man was left here to take over the position as our prime minister... Hey, at least you'll have a good president while we're going broke!

We don't have presidents in Thailand!

I thought Yves Leterme was acquitted of unlawful intervention with FORTIS Bank, though.

Oh don't get me bloody started on that guy. He won over the public with some BS about how he was going to solve the language conflict (which has existed ever since the barrier was pointed out about 80 years ago) in our country in "five minutes", that was WELL over a year ago, he's done nothing but screw the country over during the economic crisis, blamed Verhofstadt, who came before him and actually did a decent job, then quit and had Van Rompuy try to clean up the mess.

Now he's back, and he's not even doing his job, for god's sake. The government is being put together by an ex-PM, and the language conflict is being shoved into the hands of ANOTHER ex-PM, and I just know they did it because he's going to fail, which means they can blame him, or he succeeds and they can run off with the credit.

Now why the hell am I talking about this to you?

wow dude way to get started on that guy

Though I know there are stil conflicts regarding the bilangual nature (or (sometimes perceived, sometimes real) lack thereof), I thought it mainly focussed on the federal nature and largescale political reforms to allow for more autonomy for Flanders (in the loose sense, obviously ), which was supported by the right and opposed by the left (in general).

However, it obviously has to do with the Flemish long history of being second-class citizens (culminating in movements like the Flamingants) and the language struggle, as well as Flanders being the economic powerhouse of Belgium (for some time) now.