CERCLE DIPLOMATIQUE - issue 02/2017

LE MONDE BELGIUM | INTERVIEW
H.E. Baron Willem Van de Voorde
“The opposition of our different regions, Wallonia and Flanders, is exaggerated.“
In a completely refurbished salon in his newly renovated Embassy-Palais, the Ambassador of the
Kingdom of Belgium to Austria talks about the striking similarities between these two countries and
explains, why the different cultures of Wallonia and Flanders generate a certain complexity of life.
Interview: Rainer Himmelfreundpointner
H.E. WILLEM VAN DE VOORDE
PHOTOS: RALPH MANFREDA
CD: Ambassador Van de Voorde, starting with the
Habsburg Emperor Maximilian in the late 15th
century, whose heart is enshrined in Bruges, there
are endless ties between Belgium and Austria.
Can you give us a short roundup?
Willem Van de Voorde: Indeed, the marriage
of Maximilian to Mary of Burgun, back
in 1477 in Gent, is a wonderful story of how a
boy from here, Austria, and a girl from the
north found each other. In that time, the relations
between Austria and our region have
been created. It was a fantastic match between
two cultural circles. It brought a kind of Central
European leadership, that of Habsburg,
which was in fact a kind of knighthood, in
contact with a tradition which pays a lot of attention
to a high quality of life. Still today we
say ”You live like a Burgundian“ – which means
living with a love for good food, for the
arts, for nice houses and for a high quality of
our environment. Something, both of our
countries, still share today.
Actually in the 18 th century, with the peace treaty
of Utrecht, the territories of today‘s Belgium
came under the reign of Austria ...
...and you can still see the traces of that time
in the Albertina in Vienna which was the
residence from where our country was
governed from for nearly 90 years until the
French troops chased the Austrians away.
Let‘s look at the similarities, Belgium and Austria
are sharing today. Both countries have roughly
the same amount of population and size of GDP, a
social market economy and strong export industry
or a federal structure of state. How would you
refer to these similarities?
Also our location is interesting. Belgium is
on a crossroad between the Germanic and
the Romanic Europe. It is a passage place.
You go to Great Britain, you go to the north
of Europe or further south. You can see that
on the motorways, where sometimes people
just rush through our country. Austria has
something a little bit similar. It is on the
border of the Germanic and the Slavic
cultures. And it is also a very strategic passage
place between the northern part of Europe
and the southern Mediterranean. That
gives you a sense of exchange, of communication,
of exposure to a lot of different influences.
And we also have strong neighbours.
Belgium is located between France, Germany,
the United Kingdom and the Netherlands,
lives with their languages, cultures
and our main groups of population – the
Flemings and the Walloons – have strong
cousins just across the border. And Austria
has got the strong other German speaking
neighbour, Germany. This sometimes gives
you a certain way of looking at things. People
are looking for an original point of view
and trying to show how different they are
from their neighbours and how specific they
are in their culture or their language.
In Austria, we sometimes say that it is the
common language we share with Germany which
sets us apart. Is that so in Belgium, as well?
Oh, yes, we have the same phaenomena.
Even as we have the standard languages like
French or “Niederländisch“, many continue
to speak their own dialects and are very
proud of that. That is maybe one of the
underlying reasons for the kind of unspoken
understanding between Austrians and
Belgians. They go on really well with each
other and that‘s why some 500,000 tourists
from Belgium are visiting Austria each year.
Which are the recent milestones in the bilateral
relationship between Belgium and Austria?
Definitely the year of 1995, when Austria
became a member of the EU, has been a major
date. For the first time since centuries, we
came again together in a sort of supra-state
structure, the EU. That created, apart from
the facts that also before we had a very good
relationship and many cultural ties, a close
dialogue again. In 1995, we have found each
other again in the European family. Since
then, our relations have intensified manifold
on all levels and also the interest for each
other‘s societies has increased.
In which respect?
What struck me, after I arrived in Austria as
Ambassador back in September 2014, is the
keen interest both countries share in certain
matters, for which we sometimes struggle to
find the right solutions in our own societies.
For instance how to deal with the asylum
crisis and the integration of foreign
immigrants. We have the same pressure of
an aging society and the challenges this puts
on our economies and public finances. How
do we confront the terrorist threat and are
there certain clever approaches for exchange
of data from which we can learn from?
More recently, one maybe surprising similarity
was the rejection of CETA by both countries –
although they are heavily dependent on trade and
exports. How would you row that in?
Maybe part of the explanation is, that both
of our countries have a strong social market
economy. And many people had the fear
that certain deeply infringed patterns of
dealing with labour and capital would be
endangered. This is a very strong feeling, but
the overall answer is still lacking.
Since most of the CETA-opposition in Belgium
came from the Walloon region – some say, this
was more of a sign of the old internal political
struggle between Wallonia and Flanders. Is that
correct?
Well, it could be. In Belgium not all of the
people were opposing. But a certain part of
the country, the Walloon region in the south,
has been largely against CETA. The Flemish
government was rather unhappy about that
because they are the strongest exporters of the
country. But according to our constitution,
this question lies in the competence of the
regions. It brought the federal government
into a complicated situation and internal policies,
like so often, played a role in foreign policy
in this question. In the end, the federal level
did what it had to do: it coordinated the positions
and found a solution which allowed Belgium
to agree. This said, the elements raised
by the Walloon region were important elements
which had nevertheless been raised in
many EU Member states.
Can you please explain these strong differences
between Wallonia, which is populated by some
3.5 million people, and Flanders, which has about
Since September 2014, Baron Van de
Voorde serves as Ambassador of
Belgium to Austria. Prior to that, he held
high positions in the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, in the Belgian Embassies in Berlin
and Tokyo and as Secretary to H.M., the
Queen Paola.
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Cercle Diplomatique 2/2017