Christmas and Fortisgate in Brussels

Arindam’s experience of Christmas in Copenhagen was quite interesting. Hence I couldn’t resist providing some news of Christmas 900 km south of Denmark. Here people don’t talk about the weather - even if it was a freezing minus 7 centigrade - who says there is global warming?

Football does not rank high on the discussion topics neither. No, this year everybody talks about the “Fortisgate”! In the streets, in the bars, at home: everywhere. It is true that the country lost its government, once more... Fortis is (was) a large local bank that collapsed during the October crisis.

During the crash, the government strangely intervened and simply decided to sell the bank to the French and the Dutch for a fraction of its price. But they did that by themselves and in their rush they forgot to tell the shareholders of the bank – the majority of the Belgian population - that they were going to sell it and at what price! The population questioned the decision, arguing they should have been advised, and put the case before the Court, asking to block the sale.

Then in a very bad move the Prime Minister tried to influence the Judge to close the case and accept the sale of the bank, for the sake of the “public interest”. Of course the Justice didn’t like such intervention at all and communicated the whole affair to the press. And the Government had to resign... Happy Christmas Olivier Frere