They call it komkommertijd, cucumber time, when the country goes on holiday and newspapers have to make up stories about giant cucumbers to fill their pages. But this year has been different. The Belgian papers are full of big stories, ranging from Leuven-based in Bev’s €52 billion acquisition of America’s biggest brewer to the plummeting value of Fortis Banks shares. The biggest story broke just over a week ago when Yves Leterme submitted his resignation to the King. Leterme was still Prime Minister when Flanders Today went to press (the King had not yet accepted his resignation), but it looks increasingly likely that this may be the end of the road for the hard-working politician from Ypres and former Minister-President of Flanders Region. Leterme has come a long way since the election of June 2007 when he won the second-highest number of preferential votes in the country’s history – some 800,000. He has struggled over the past 13 months to form a coalition that can push through essential state reforms, but now believes that there is no way forward.
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