BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgium's military commander denied Sunday that sharp cuts in the armed forces favor the country's Flemish region at the expense of the French-speaking Wallonia region.
Gen. Charles-Henri Delcour said he regrets a statement by an air base commander who claimed the cuts would strip Wallonia of any significant military facilities — a rare act of insubordination in a force that has sought to steer clear of the political divide between Belgium’s Dutch and French speakers.
The dispute comes at a particularly sensitive time for the country, where a widening rift between politicians representing the Dutch and French-speaking camps has prevented the formation of a federal government since elections in June.
On Saturday, Air Force Col. Luc Gennart denounced the "Flemishization" of the military, saying that the Dutch-speakers "decide everything in the armed forces." He said that the closure of the Florennes base would force the transfer of Belgium’s remaining F-16 fighter-bombers to an air base in Flanders, leaving Wallonia without any significant military presence.
He said the dominance of Flemish-speaking officers in the upper ranks of the military were to blame for the cuts that targeted Wallonia.
Of the 33 generals and admirals in Belgian armed forces, 23 are Flemish-speaking, according to the daily Le Soir. Delcour himself is Francophone.
Gennart’s public comments — unheard of for a senior officer — indicate that the growing tensions have spilled over into the armed forces, one of the remaining bilingual organizations in the country.
Due to austerity measures caused by the financial crisis, dozens of military bases are scheduled to be closed. The current 45,000 service members will be cut to just 30,000 by 2015.
"Gen. Delcour regrets that the colonel expressed himself on delicate questions … without taking into account all the elements of the problem," Maj. Olivier Severin, the top commander’s spokesman, told the Belga news agency.
Severin said there was no intent to favor either region. He attributed the fact that there were more Dutch-speaking commanders among the country’s top ranks to the fact that many French candidates were not bilingual and failed Dutch language-proficiency tests.
