EUROPEAN DIARY: I COULD tell that the immediate crisis was over when the tenants in the apartment block opposite my flat began taking down the national flags they had hung out on their balconies last year in support of "the movement to save Belgium".
Set up in November following the repeated failure of talks to form a new government, the movement urged people to "fly the flag" to persuade politicians from the two main linguistic groups in the country to put aside their differences and form a coalition.
This call for solidarity was met enthusiastically in French-speaking Wallonia and Brussels, where thousands of flags popped up in apartment windows or on the bumper stickers of cars in an outward show of solidarity for the state of Belgium.
A petition to save the country, which was formed back in 1830 after a revolt against its Dutch leaders, attracted more than 140,000 signatures. Yet in Dutch-speaking Flanders, where six million of the 10.5 million Belgians live, the black, red and yellow colours of the Belgian flag were conspicuous by their absence on car stickers or apartment windows.
This lack of patriotic fervour in Flemish communities perhaps explains why few commentators are predicting that last week's agreement to form a new government marks the end of the country's worst constitutional crisis in its history.
The five-party coalition cobbled together by the Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme, who has been inaugurated as the new prime minister, may straddle the linguistic divide by incorporating French-speaking Liberals and Socialists.
But it also avoids the key sticking point of constitutional reform, which has opened up a major rift between Belgium's linguistic communities during nine months of acrimonious talks between Flemish and francophone parties.
Despite winning the June general election on a platform of devolving even more powers to the regional assemblies in Wallonia and Flanders, Mr Leterme's 40-page government programme focuses on boosting welfare benefits and providing tax breaks to the poorly paid. The financing of the proposed changes is yet to be sorted out and will prove difficult given the deteriorating economic climate, while the thorny issue of constitutional reform has been outsourced to a committee of "wise men," who have been mandated to recommend potential solutions by a deadline of July 15th.
The Christian Democrats have already warned they will withdraw from government if no deal can be agreed with the francophone parties within the delicate coalition, a move that would plunge Belgium straight back into its existential crisis. Indeed, the decision to form a coalition with no real policy on constitutional reform prompted Flemish daily De Morgento liken it to a baby born prematurely with little prospect of survival, while politicians from both communities have also expressed their doubts.
"I fear grave institutional chaos" if the government falls in July, said the new employment minister, Joelle Milquet, leader of the francophone Christian Democrats, who was dubbed "Madame non" due to her tough stance in devolution talks. Speaking after the coalition got the required two-thirds of votes in parliament, she said the danger of Belgium splitting into two nations was "real".
At the root of the dispute over devolution is the feeling in Flanders that it is propping up Wallonia financially through the diversion of the tax receipts of its citizens to the poorer francophone region. For example, the richer north has enjoyed an average unemployment rate of 5 per cent since 1999, while unemployment in Wallonia has averaged 11 per cent, according to statistics from the National Bank of Belgium.
This has spurred demands in Flanders for labour policy to pass from federal to regional control. But in Wallonia politicians fear they will not be able to continue paying unemployment benefit if the federal government withdraws from the area.
On top of these practical concerns, both linguistic communities regard each other with suspicion borne of their age-old struggle for supremacy throughout history.
They also live very separate lives in Belgium, watching different television stations, reading different newspapers, largely living in different geographic regions and unable even to vote for political parties that represent the other community.
This "separateness" famously spurred prime minister Yves Leterme to question Belgian identity by declaring in a newspaper interview that the king, the football team and some beers are the only common things that unite Belgians.
The future of the new coalition, and perhaps even the country, now rests on the shoulders of this son of a Flemish mother and francophone father. Mr Leterme will somehow have to find a solution to the constitutional conundrum facing Belgium as the July deadline for the committee of the wise men to report approaches.
Until then, it could prove prudent for my francophone neighbours to fold their flags gently and store them until the next campaign to save Belgium is launched, which could come as early as the summer.