You know, I thought the UK political situation could be difficult. The Welsh Assembly, Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Assembly all having different levels of devolved powers. Knowing who can do what, and where that power comes from can be a nightmare. Each piece of secondary legislation has to be double checked to see if it applies to all the parts of the UK, or only some, and even the ones that only apply to some parts may have some importance in general to the parts they’re not actually in force in. For instance, the pleural plaques compensation is currently UK wide legislation, but the Scottish Government disagrees with the decision, and is planning to create its own legislation under its devolved health remit.
But the Belgian situation makes all those niggles easy to deal with. They’ve only just managed to swear in a government…after elections in June 2007! And it may still collapse in July 2008.
At least in the UK we only have one language to have to cope with in negotiations. Well, actually, there’s Welsh in Wales…and Gaelic in Scotland…hmmm, that could get tricky if you get people who want to be difficult!
Dumpling in a Hanky 