June 07, 2005

I can't wait for the next Belgium V Holland soccer match

A diplomatic incident between Belgium and The Netherlands over the weekend after an interview with Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht in which he described the Dutch PM Jan-Peter Balkenende as "a mixture between Harry Potter and a nice petit bourgeois". All in aid of a spat over the EU Treaty referendum, which De Gucht claims would have been passed in a Belgian referendum.

The Harry Potter comparison is an old one. Balkenende used it himself in his 2002 election campaign and was reported as such by the BBC, so it's a bit of a beat up. I'm sure you could come up with far more unflattering ones, even for the Belgian PM.

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