Is there a veto against Vlaams Belang after the election and what is this ‘cordon sanitaire’?

2024 is an election year for millions of people across the globe and also for the people of Flanders and Belgium.  On June 9 the European elections also coincide with elections for Belgium’s federal and regional parliaments.  In the polls the far-right Vlaams Belang is doing exceedingly well, picking up 27.8% in the latest edition of De Stemming (The Vote), opinion research commissioned by Flemish public broadcaster VRT and daily De Standaard and undertaken by political scientists at Antwerp University.

Vlaams Belang clearly has a commanding lead in Flanders and is leagues ahead of the Flemish nationalist N-VA that on 18.9% is second.  It’s highly unlikely the Vlaams Belang will ever make it into the federal government given the visceral hatred of the party among Francophone politicians.  In Flanders the situation is less clear.  Since the Nineties and the first breakthrough of Vlaams Belang predecessor Vlaams Blok the far right has been ostracised by all other political parties and has been placed in what is called the ‘cordon sanitaire’ or ‘sanitary line’.  The term comes from medical parlance and denotes a guarded line used to close of an infected area.  In political terms it means a refusal to co-operate.

The cordon stands, but will it remain intact after the next election.  All eyes are on Bart De Wever’s Flemish nationalists.  Mr De Wever has said he hopes it won’t be necessary to trash the cordon, meaning he hopes other parties will pick up sufficient votes to form a majority and he will be able to come to an agreement with them.

On the other hand he has also made it clear that if the next federal government doesn’t also possess a majority in Flanders he will not be available for the Flemish government and northern Belgium could become ungovernable.  Given the strength of the various parties in the most recent polls N-VA too will probably be required if any majority is to be agreed either in Flanders or at the federal level.  Mr De Wever could team up with the far right Vlaams Belang in Flanders and that would mean an end to the cordon sanitaire that has held for four decades. 

So what is this cordon and where does it come from?

Mention the term 'cordon sanitaire' to livestock farmers and they break out in a cold sweat. It implies sick cows, pigs or chickens, around which an isolating ring or fence has to be placed to ensure they do not infect other animals and/or cattle farms.

In the world of politics it has a different meaning.  It is used to denote an agreement to isolate a party from power so that it cannot implement its policies. In Belgium, the Vlaams Blok and its successor Vlaams Belang have been subject to a 'cordon sanitaire' for over 35 years.

Who first came up with a term that is more at home in the jargon of animal husbandry than politics? Politicians are unable to come up with a consensus on this one, but the hot money is on Hugo Gijsels, an investigative journalist, who in the Eighties and Nineties wrote about the rise of the far right in Belgium.

Gijsels once said that, as a moderator at a conference of the Young Socialists, he had suggested placing a "cordon" around Vlaams Belang. The term stuck and Gijsels believes it may well have been the then green leader Jos Geysels, who came up with the term ‘cordon sanitaire’.

Political scientist Herwig Reynaert (UGent) says he has always found the term rather unfortunate: "After all, we are still talking about people here."

2. When and especially why was this "barrier" thrown around the far-right?

At the end of the Eighties, the far-right Vlaams Blok kept gaining ground, especially in Antwerp. The party, which only much later was convicted of racism, promoted policies that discriminated between various groups in society.

Spurred on by Jos Geysels, the other political parties of that day made a clear deal, barely a few lines long according to Geysels. The deal is easily summarised in one sentence: the parties would not enter into any collaboration with the Vlaams Blok on any political level.

A first 'official' step towards the cordon was a resolution voted in the Flemish parliament in 1992.  It opposed the Vlaams Blok’s policy platform, the Seventy Point Plan. The plan contained 70 radical measures to stop and reverse the influx of asylum seekers and to implement the party's 'Our people first' policy. The parliamentary resolution included references to the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Vlaams Blok morphed into Vlaams Belang after its racism conviction in 2004. Other parties decided to maintain the cordon sanitaire, which exists to this day.

Interestingly, the Flemish nationalist party N-VA was set up nearly 10 years after the original cordon sanitaire was introduced and has never formally declared that it will never join a coalition with Vlaams Belang.

3. What impact has the cordon had?

In recent years there have, at times, been intense discussions about the cordon sanitaire. The agreement between political parties has not stopped the rise of Vlaams Blok/Belang. "The problem is that at the time, political parties and the media did far too little to explain why that cordon sanitaire existed," political scientist Herwig Reynaert believes.

Vlaams Belang has always called the cordon 'undemocratic', but Reynaert thinks this is nonsense. "Every political party has the right to choose not to cooperate with certain parties. If they can form a majority, there is nothing undemocratic about that."

For those who adhere to it the cordon has always had the desired effect: Vlaams Belang politicians elected to office have so far been denied access to any executive roles. "On the other hand, over the past 35 years Vlaams Belang has been able to put issues on the political agenda and has thus had a great impact. You can’t say they haven’t played any role because of that cordon."

Opponents, however, dare to claim that the cordon has made Vlaams Belang more influential and stronger. "It’s been a mixed picture, but the party has been able to portray itself as the underdog and that helps them to garner support in many quarters. Moreover, Vlaams Belang has always championed issues everyday people are worried about."

Herwig Reynaert notes a paradox: having a big Vlaams Blok/Belang behind a fence isn’t always bad for the other parties: "With a Vlaams Belang that gets a lot of votes, but still cannot claim any executive roles, other parties are actually more likely to participate in power. That’s because there is then less scope to form a majority, which means that more parties are often needed in any coalition."