Travel Has Been Immobilized In Belgium By An Air Traffic Control Strike
© Belga/AFP/File Laurie DieffembacqA plane flies past an air traffic control tower in Steenokkerzeel, near Brussels Airport, on July 2.
Both international and domestic air and train links were cut late Sunday in Belgium as a national strike began against the new government's austerity policies, official sources said.
"All flights are canceled. Everything is immobilized until the same time tomorrow," Brussels Airport spokeswoman Florence Muls told AFP.
She added that a total of 600 incoming and outgoing flights would not land at or take off from Brussels airport in the 24-hour period that air traffic controllers would be on strike.
Officials at Charleroi airport outside the Belgian capital told AFP earlier that outgoing flights were canceled and incoming ones would be diverted for 24 hours from 2100 GMT Sunday.
The other airports affected by the strike are those at Liege, Antwerp, and Ostend.
The Belgian rail firm SNCB said on its website that domestic train services were canceled from 2100 GMT Sunday through Monday.
Eurostar said on its website that a train scheduled to travel late Sunday from London to Brussels would stop at the French city of Lille, near the Belgian border, and not travel on to the Belgian capital.
Eurostar said its services were also canceled all day Monday.
Thalys said on its website meanwhile that trains serving Lille and Amsterdam as well as Amsterdam and Paris were canceled Sunday evening.
Its services to the Netherlands, France and Germany were canceled through Monday, including disruptions early Tuesday.
On Monday the strike will widen to bus, tram, and metro services as well as schools, businesses, factories, and government offices throughout Belgium.
The movement began last month with a 100,000-person march in Brussels that ended in clashes leaving 112 police officers injured.
Belgian unions oppose a decision by Prime Minister Charles Michel's right-of-centre coalition government to scrap plans for a usually automatic cost-of-living raise next year.
They also reject public sector cutbacks and plans to raise the retirement age.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-...trike-begins-in-belgium-2014-12#ixzz3LzTfTrEh
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d63c21f8-8440-11e4-bae9-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz3LzUDOyvw
December 15, 2014 10:53 am
Belgium hit by general strike
Duncan Robinson
©AFP
Belgium ground to a halt on Monday in a general strike called by the country’s powerful trade unions as they wrestle the government over reforms aimed at eliminating the Belgian budget deficit by 2018.
Eurostar has cancelled its services into Brussels, while there have been widespread delays and cancellations across the country’s airports and railways. Pickets on main roads into Brussels have blocked access to parts of the normally traffic-clogged city.
More
ON THIS TOPIC
But opposition to the proposals has been stiff with Belgium suffering a wave of strikes throughout November, culminating in Monday’s national general strike. In November, more than 100,000 protested in Brussels, the largest demonstration since the 1980s, injuring 112 police officers in the process.
Belgium’s government insists that it has little wiggle room to dilute its reforms. The controversial proposals were agreed during five months of painstaking negotiations over the formation of Belgium’s government.
The European Commission has warned Belgium, along with France and Italy, that its proposed budget may break the EU’s fiscal rules.
Growth in the eurozone’s sixth-largest economy remains sluggish, with annual growth of 0.9 per cent projected for 2014.
“What the trade unions really want is to change the nature of government policy: they do not want small changes or adjustments,” said Professor Devos, a political scientist at the University of Ghent. “But there is no room for the government to change policy.”
Trade union leaders disagree. Marc Leemans, who heads CSC, one of Belgium’s two biggest trade unions, said: “CSC does not dispute the need to take action, but how [the actions] are taken.” There are approximately 3.5m trade union members in Belgium, which has a population of 11m.
Bart De Wever, the charismatic leader of the Flemish separatist NVA, which is one of four parties in the coalition government, has led the government’s fightback. Mr De Wever labelled the strikes “political” and called one union the “armed wing” of the Parti Socialiste, Belgium’s leftwing opposition.
But the strikes have proved a headache for its fellow Dutch-speaking coalition partner CD&V, which has historic links with the country’s trade union movement, according to Professor Dave Sinardet, an academic at the Free University of Brussels.
“Only six months ago, CD&V was accused by some of being part of a Marxist, leftwing government,” said Professor Sinardet. “Now they are accused of being part of socially destructive neoliberal government. It is not easy to be a centre party.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2014/...m-more-reform-needed-as-strike-halts-country/
IMF Tells Belgium More Reform Needed as Strike Halts Country
3
15
- DEC. 15, 2014, 5:23 AM
- 1,185
Both international and domestic air and train links were cut late Sunday in Belgium as a national strike began against the new government's austerity policies, official sources said.
"All flights are canceled. Everything is immobilized until the same time tomorrow," Brussels Airport spokeswoman Florence Muls told AFP.
She added that a total of 600 incoming and outgoing flights would not land at or take off from Brussels airport in the 24-hour period that air traffic controllers would be on strike.
Officials at Charleroi airport outside the Belgian capital told AFP earlier that outgoing flights were canceled and incoming ones would be diverted for 24 hours from 2100 GMT Sunday.
The other airports affected by the strike are those at Liege, Antwerp, and Ostend.
The Belgian rail firm SNCB said on its website that domestic train services were canceled from 2100 GMT Sunday through Monday.
Eurostar said on its website that a train scheduled to travel late Sunday from London to Brussels would stop at the French city of Lille, near the Belgian border, and not travel on to the Belgian capital.
Eurostar said its services were also canceled all day Monday.
Thalys said on its website meanwhile that trains serving Lille and Amsterdam as well as Amsterdam and Paris were canceled Sunday evening.
Its services to the Netherlands, France and Germany were canceled through Monday, including disruptions early Tuesday.
On Monday the strike will widen to bus, tram, and metro services as well as schools, businesses, factories, and government offices throughout Belgium.
The movement began last month with a 100,000-person march in Brussels that ended in clashes leaving 112 police officers injured.
Belgian unions oppose a decision by Prime Minister Charles Michel's right-of-centre coalition government to scrap plans for a usually automatic cost-of-living raise next year.
They also reject public sector cutbacks and plans to raise the retirement age.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-...trike-begins-in-belgium-2014-12#ixzz3LzTfTrEh
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d63c21f8-8440-11e4-bae9-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz3LzUDOyvw
December 15, 2014 10:53 am
Belgium hit by general strike
Duncan Robinson
Belgium ground to a halt on Monday in a general strike called by the country’s powerful trade unions as they wrestle the government over reforms aimed at eliminating the Belgian budget deficit by 2018.
Eurostar has cancelled its services into Brussels, while there have been widespread delays and cancellations across the country’s airports and railways. Pickets on main roads into Brussels have blocked access to parts of the normally traffic-clogged city.
More
ON THIS TOPIC
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But opposition to the proposals has been stiff with Belgium suffering a wave of strikes throughout November, culminating in Monday’s national general strike. In November, more than 100,000 protested in Brussels, the largest demonstration since the 1980s, injuring 112 police officers in the process.
Belgium’s government insists that it has little wiggle room to dilute its reforms. The controversial proposals were agreed during five months of painstaking negotiations over the formation of Belgium’s government.
The European Commission has warned Belgium, along with France and Italy, that its proposed budget may break the EU’s fiscal rules.
Growth in the eurozone’s sixth-largest economy remains sluggish, with annual growth of 0.9 per cent projected for 2014.
“What the trade unions really want is to change the nature of government policy: they do not want small changes or adjustments,” said Professor Devos, a political scientist at the University of Ghent. “But there is no room for the government to change policy.”
Trade union leaders disagree. Marc Leemans, who heads CSC, one of Belgium’s two biggest trade unions, said: “CSC does not dispute the need to take action, but how [the actions] are taken.” There are approximately 3.5m trade union members in Belgium, which has a population of 11m.
Bart De Wever, the charismatic leader of the Flemish separatist NVA, which is one of four parties in the coalition government, has led the government’s fightback. Mr De Wever labelled the strikes “political” and called one union the “armed wing” of the Parti Socialiste, Belgium’s leftwing opposition.
But the strikes have proved a headache for its fellow Dutch-speaking coalition partner CD&V, which has historic links with the country’s trade union movement, according to Professor Dave Sinardet, an academic at the Free University of Brussels.
“Only six months ago, CD&V was accused by some of being part of a Marxist, leftwing government,” said Professor Sinardet. “Now they are accused of being part of socially destructive neoliberal government. It is not easy to be a centre party.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2014/...m-more-reform-needed-as-strike-halts-country/
IMF Tells Belgium More Reform Needed as Strike Halts Country
3
15
- By
- FRANCES ROBINSON
- the European Union saying it: The International Monetary Fund has just concluded its annual review of the country, after a ten-day visit.
The visit was timed perfectly: There’s a general strike today, meaning the streets of Brussels are unusually quiet, except for flag-waving trade unionists, and the air smells faintly of burning tires.
“We end on a rather special day here in Belgium, a day of strikes which I think really feeds importantly into the debate that is taking place on how to reform the Belgian economy so that it can create more jobs and maintain the financial integrity of the social-security system as the population ages,” said Edward Gardner, the IMF’s mission chief for Belgium.
The strikes are a response to the program of economic reforms set out by Prime Minister Charles Michel’s center-right government. This includes gradually raising the pension age to 67 from 2030, and delaying the next wage increase under the country’s system of wage indexation, which links salary increases to inflation. The IMF approved.
“If the program is implemented as stated I would recognize that as a pretty important step, notably in terms of lengthening career lengths which is real issue for Belgium compared to its partners,” Mr. Gardner said. Plus, he added, welfare benefits should be adapted: “Generous access to social transfers contributes to low employment levels notably by facilitating early exit from the labor force.”
Mr. Michel’s government, which was sworn in in October, got a gold star for the pace of structural adjustment to the country’s budget – well, the IMF called it “appropriate” – and they welcomed “the commitment to achieve it by containing current spending while eschewing increases in the overall tax burden.”
Where those taxes fall, however, could be a lot fairer – as the EU, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and others have noted. “Some harmonization would be welcome,” he said. “I wouldn’t focus on any specific tax regime but looking at income from capital in all its forms… It’s important to look at that income more globally.”
There’s scope to go further than the government plans in tax reform. “Property taxes could be rebalanced from transaction taxes to recurrent taxes on immovable property,” he suggested. Belgium could look more broadly to indirect taxation, VAT and environmental taxes. “Revenue gains from such reforms would be available to reduce labor taxes further.”
Finally – and again, a lament the government has heard before – there are too many layers to running Belgium. The federal, regional and local governments need to make sure they coordinate, because devolved policies on labor markets “raises the risks that uncoordinated actions and approaches will complicate rather than simplify economic life.”
Let’s hope he can get back: There are currently no flights, trains or buses.
