More Belgian negotiations break down

The Witloof can exclusively reveal that top-secret negotiations between high ranking Flemish and Francophone politicians on the break-up of the country have broken down.

The talks, taking place in a crowded pub in downtown Brussels, had been progressing well according to one well placed source. There was broad agreement that Flanders would keep the economic growth while Wallonia would keep large numbers of unemployed.

Flanders would get the majority of the beer, while Wallonia would take the lion’s share of the chocolate. Wallonia would also get the royal family, a key Flemish demand.

Experts had expected the most difficult aspect of the talks to concern the future of Brussels but there was apparently unanimity that this should be given to the Moroccans.

The breakdown of the break-up negotiations actually came as those involved failed to agree on how to divide up the family silver. In addition to the embassies in Washington, London, Paris and Moscow, Flanders wanted a rather expensive looking crystal chandelier and a set of six ceramic dinner plates. Flabbergasted Walloon negotiators are understood to have stormed out without even finishing their 33cl glasses of Jupiler.

The question now is whether the two sides can be tempted back to the negotiating table. Those familiar with the key players estimate the chance of a resumption at about 30%, coincidentally also the average strength of a local beer.

Inside: Mannekin Pis refuses to take sides.

Chinese Year of the Pig no match for EU-China Year of Science

It may be the Chinese Year of the Pig but what is really getting the Chinese worked up is the EU-China Year of Science.

Only weeks into the Chinese new year and enthusiasm has already receeded to to point of whimper. Grafitti referring to the 'Year of the damp Squib' has allegedly begun to spring up on dams around the country. Were it the Year of the Dragon, one would be tempted to say that it had run out of puff.

No Puff?

Sources are suggesting that it was the unrelenting style and verve of the Commission's original press release that first attracted the Chinese. "How can a few firework displays compete with prose like that", complained a depressed Beijing mandarin charged with the uneviable task of reigniting the public interest. "Since that damned press missive it has been simple damage limitation."

Even the fact that it is a Lunar Year of the Pig - think multiple milleniums, as one China gazer put it - has left the Chinese unmoved. "It simply does not possess the same sort of attraction for young people as the recent joint EU-China exhibit on S&T co-operation at the Shenzhen High Tech Fair or the EU-Asia East Midland’s cooperation event at Leicester University", commented a well known face on the Shanghai party scene.

It is understood that all hope has been lost. Chinese officials in the department of the new year are now placing all of their hopes on next year's Year of the Rat but are watching nervously to see what the EU might have up its sleeve. An EU-China Year of Food Safety could be disastrous, they fear.

Inside: Vietnam and Korea break diplomatic ties with EU in bid to avoid similar fiascos.

Junior consultant labels EP vote ‘significant’, faces can

Rupert Leffler, Junior Consultant for EU Affairs with lobbyists Influence Pedl Inc., has caused outrage amongst the firm’s client base by labelling as “significant” the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee first reading vote on the draft directive on the importance of commercial distinction between fundamentally similar products.

Frustrations with the directive appear to have spilled over with Leffler bearing the brunt. In email exchanges seen by the witloof, the words “bitch slap”, reappear regularly. It goes on to say that they would like to “open a can of whoopass” on Leffler’s head.

Influence Pedl Inc. with an address at 1 Rue des Portes Pivotantes, represents a number of clients for whom the directive is problematic, including Pepsi and Murphy’s Stout.

Article 7 of the draft directive stipulates that simply being a different company is not sufficient to prove that the products actually differ. It introduces a requirement for the distinctions between a product and its main competitors to be clearly included on the label. The Parliament, in its infinite wisdom, has voted to maintain this requirement.

Pepsi and Murphy’s, who have mounted expensive lobbying campaigns, have whinged that they cannot comply because their main competitors, Coke and Guinness, will not actually tell them what their products are made of.

The firm’s senior partner, McKensie Mucksavage, Scottish, has moved to calm clients by claiming that Leffler had “slightly overestimated the role of the Parliament in the democratic process”. We are confident that the member states will recognise the anomaly that this proposal creates, he said, possibly forgetting that the Irish have even less influence over Council discussions than the Americans, who are not even present.

Leffler commented obliquely “following on from the recent doubts over my parentage it is the last thing that I needed right now”.

Inside: Murphy’s to reveal country in which legal drinking age is 2.
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Commission to establish mission on second life. Eyes permanent move.

Sources within the European Commission have exclusively revealed that the Commission is seeking to open a Mission on Second Life. “We are seeking to open a Mission on Second Life”, they said.

The move comes just a month after Sweden announced similar intentions. The key difference, however, is that the Commission is believed to be thinking of moving permanently and in its entirety. Officials believe, and they would be right, that this can be done without any noticeable effect on European life.

It is understood that the idea, which emanates from the Commission President’s ‘crack ideas team’, the self-styled ‘wonks boffins’ - or boffins wonks in French - of the Bureau of European Policy Advisors, is a panic reaction to alarming new statistics revealing the extent their own uselessness. Contacts at Eurostat refused to comment but seemed to combine a cough with the figure 100%.

The secret operation is understood to have been given the codename ‘lock, stock and barrel move to second life by 31.12.2007’. Disgruntled former KGB code-crackers contacted by the witloof are interpreting this as an indication that the Commission is hoping complete the move by the end of the year. Experienced Commission watchers are sceptical that any (and by that they appear to mean any) policy can be effectively implemented by the end of the millennium.

Nobody from Second Life could be reached for comment but, let’s face it, they are unlikely to be very enthusiastic.

Poll: Would you invite the European Commission into your home?

Clijsters keeps her cool to lose

Kim Clijsters marked her last match on Belgian soil by doing what she does best, coming second.

Refusing to break the habit of a lifetime, Kim admirably managed not to let the raucous backing of a partizan 15,000 Antwerp crowd get to her. She went down in straight sets to the Frenchman Amelie Mauresmo. Normally in a tournament final Kim would lose to her rather dull, a-cupped, compatriot, Justine Henin (sometimes Hardenne).

There was some consolation for the home crowd however, as they took in the improbable sight of thighs that size doing the splits.

In a retirement move that stretches even Belgian definitions of hanging up the boots early, 23 year old Kim was moved to tears at the end of her match. It appears that she was crying over the fact that she somehow managed to blot her copybook by winning the 2005 US Open title, the only stain on an otherwise perfect run of defeat.

With marriage to American basketballer Brian Lynch – who plays for the world renowned Belgian side Bree – impending, Kim now wants to concentrate on domestic life and losing games such as scrabble and ker plunk, as well as her figure.

Manneken Pis: "I can speak!"

The Manneken Pis (www.manneken-pis.com) stunned tourists of various nationalites on Monday by speaking. Shocked visitors to Brussels’ most famous landmark reported his words to be "what are you looking at?" As men, women and children stared on dumbstruck, the Manneken is reported to have calmly continued urinating.

In an exclusive interview with your correspondent the little fella appeared determined to make up for almost four centuries of silence. Asked about his favourite tourist nationalities, he reveals quite a softspot for the Japanese. "Or are they Chinese, or Korean. They all look the same to me." He is clearer that he cannot stand the Germans. "Can anyone?", he comments, while also lambasting the Americans who sometimes obscure his view of the other side of the road.

391 years after taking his place in the rue de l’etuve it seems the little boy wouldn’t mind a change of scenery. "To tell you the truth" he confides, "I would quite like the chance to piss somewhere else for a while. I quite like the rarified atmosphere of the Sablon." He denies wanting to move somewhere closer to female colleague Janneke Pis. "I’m sick and tired of listening to tourists call her my sister, she is absolutely no relation," he says. Asked if he could foresee a romantic relationship blossoming between the two, he frostily responds "I’m six".

The Manneke’s hard cold exterior is briefly pierced with mention of his retired costume fitter. For fifty years his daily attire was chosen by the same man. Since September 2004, however, he has had to endure being dressed by a string of different people. "To be frank its embarrassing" he says pointedly, going on to lambast the city authorities for their failure to find a long-term replacement. "It’s fine for them in their air-conditioned bureaux" he squeaks.

He is not the only person irritated at the recent turns of events. The curator of the atomium is fuming at the loss of revenue at his own tourist attraction. "Its got everything" he groans, referring to his three foot nemesis, "the ideal location, and now the gift of the gab". "What am I to do with my rusty balls?"

Inside: Danes' praying for Little Mermaid to abandon her silence

“Belgians wake up to discover that they actually enjoy living together”

Belgians went to sleep as usual on Thursday evening last, muttering insults about their compatriots. They awoke, Friday, to sweetness and light. “It reminds me of Woodstock”, commented one man, who skipped off whistling the tune to All You Need is Love before he could be asked his name. He looked Flemish, noted somebody, failing to adjust quickly enough to the new environment in which the language barrier fails to matter.

Initial reports suggest that the new spirit has infected each of the language communities, as we refer to them out of nothing more than habit. “I think that the last fifteen years of increasing political independence of the regions should be undone” was the initial reaction of Geert from Aarschot. “Absoluut” agreed Yves from Brussels, promising that he would follow his first public utterance in Flemish with an actual conversion of mother tongue. Nobody from the German east of the country could be found for comment. All Eurocrats had already left for the weekend and probably couldn't care less anyway.

Reaction from the political classes has been unanimously positive. Early speculation had suggested that the big losers from the new environment would be Vlaams Belang. However they no longer exist. A person who used to be referred to as woordvoerder, but never porte-parole, muttered something about “slight embarrassment”, adding “désolé!” Belgian Premier Guy Verhofstad told the assembled press corp, “it is the culmination of my life’s work”, and declared it yet another national holiday. Members of the few surviving opposition parties cried, possibly of happiness.

Urgent plans were being made for the re-unification of the Catholic Universities of Louvain-la-Neuve and Leuven. Professors in Louvain-la-Neuve were making plans to sell the ‘city’ to a multi-storey car park magnate.

Analysis P9: Thirty five mile daisy chain built round previously disputed Brussels a sign of the new age.

“Man in the moon distraught over Belgian power cut”

The man in the moon has urged the Belgian authorities to act quickly to restore full power to the country’s highway lights, Russian cosmanauts reported Wednesday. Fresh from their latest moon landing the Ruskies painted a bleak picture of the psychological state of the moons sole dweller. “He is listening to a lot of Tom Waits up there, I fear for the future” commented Yuri, first commandant, adding that a copy of REM’s Man on the Moon had brought only “a faint hint of that old cheeky grin”.

“He is fed up just looking at just the Great Wall of China” commented the Omsk native, who was keen to add that the MotM encourages ambitious wall building in general. “You get a lot of time to talk on those cold lunar evenings” he commented coyly, “the MotM has often told me of his disappointment that Hadrians Wall hasn’t been extended”.

MotM is reported to “love the comical Belgian driving”. “He is fascinated by spookrijders” reports Yuri, who tells us that MotM just wishes that he could see more of the secondary road network. “We told him about the ‘priorité a droite’ and he thought we were pulling his leg” chips in the clearly well travelled Sergei, gravitational pull expert and flight deck controller (see Who Can Blame Him? on page 9). The love affair with the Belgian highways is tempered somewhat by his dislike of the extensive use of tunnels, we are led to believe. Displaying undeniable eye for detail, the moons first citizen is also reported to have complained about the lack of highway between Aalter and Knokke.

Overall, however, he commends the Belgian road system, prays for a speedy restoration of full power, and in common with many in Flanders’ first city, “can’t wait for the ring of Antwerp to be completely finished”.

Inside Exclusive: Michael Jackson to Moonwalk on the Moon in extraordinary bid to cheer moon man up.