The widely supported protests against the state reform plans of the so-called Egmont Pact not only caused a government crisis, but instigated the secession of a radical right wing from the pro-Flemish party the Volksunie. Moreover, after state reform in 1980--which divided Belgium into communities and regions with their own governments--the developments within the Flemish Movement and the various community difficulties created tensions within Belgian society.
It was mainly the Liberal representatives Adriaan Verhulst (a prominent supporter of the Flemish Movement) and Armand Beyens together with the representative of the pro-Flemish Volksunie Antoon Van Overstraeten, who opposed the project.
The now-defunct
Volksunie Party (VU) was the most militant Flemish regional party in Parliament in the 1950s and 1960s, drawing nearly one-quarter of Belgium's Dutch-speaking electorate at the height of its popularity.
During the time covered by our analysis we see in the Flemish case the demise of the Volksunie which, in its final phase, followed a strategy resembling the first one predicted (moderate spokesperson party) although being less moderate than expected.
Breuning and Ishiyama (12) have analyzed the rhetoric and campaign used by both Vlaams Blok and Volksunie. The Vlaams Blok persistently took a very militant stand, slashing out at the central institutions and serving the classic right-wing extremist audience with attacks on foreigners and seculars (13).
In May 1999, the neo-Nazi leader of the Nederlandse
Volksunie, Joop Glimmerveen, was sentenced to five months in gaol for advocating the expulsion of ethnic minorities, while others have been incarcerated for carrying a swastika.
A Flemish People's Union (
Volksunie) was founded in 1954, which called for Flemish autonomy within a federal Belgium.
By comparison, in Dutch-speaking Belgium, a moderate Flemish nationalist party,
Volksunie or People's Union (VU, later VU-ID21) continued to exist.
The Alliance includes the highly controversial Flemish national separatist party
Volksunie, whose links to fascism caused chaos in the Belgian Government last week.
The first cracks in the fabric of the Belgian state were hardly seismic -- an insistent demand for cultural parity by organized interests in Flanders (farmers, business and employers associations, professional associations, with tacit support from some non-socialist trades unions) through the medium of
Volksunie, a regionally based party -- participating in its councils, fund-raising and canvassing its policies.
The
Volksunie first received substantial recognition in national elections in 1971 and were joined by the more radical Vlaams Blok during the 1980s.