Flanders today
JANUARY 19, 2011 Erkenningsnummer P708816
f r e e N E W S W e e k ly
2/n e w s
7/b u s i n e s s
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w w w. f l a n d e r s t o d ay. E U
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13/a g e n da
16/f o o d
Communication breakdown
#163
Our interview with Alex Stockman, director of Pulsar p10
Belgium’s debt under scrutiny
New fathers want more time off
Market confidence in economy faces biggest test yet O
B
Alan Hope
elgium is in 16th place on a list of countries considered most likely to go bankrupt within five years, according to Credit Market Analysis (CMA). That’s slightly better than Lebanon and Romania, but a lot worse than it was last year, when the country was in a more respectable 53rd place. Among the reasons for the rating, according to CMA, are its high debt burden, the general economic crisis in the eurozone and the country’s failure to form a new government. The list is headed by Greece, Venezuela and Ireland, while the stable economies of Norway, Finland and Sweden come at the end. The ratings are derived from the price of a credit-default swap for each country – a sort of insurance policy taken out by investors against the chance of a government defaulting on its debts. The more likelihood of default, the higher the CDS price. Using the CDS price,
together with other indicators, CMA has calculated an index of the probability of default. Greece, at the top of the list, is ranked at 58.8; Norway, at the bottom, is at 2.1, while Belgium stands at 17.9. The problem is more important than rankings on a table. As negotiations to form a new government stagger on, the federal administration of Yves Leterme has had to face the prospect of cutting €4 billion of public spending, as well as the possibility of disaster when the time comes to raise money on the capital markets. Last week, Portugal, one of the countries under attack by speculators, staged a bond auction; the result was considered a success simply because the interest rate at which the financial markets were prepared to take on government paper was slightly lower – at 6.71% – than the 7% rate which had been expected, as well as lower than the 6.8% obtained at its last auction last
year. The issue was a success only relative to the potential disaster it might have been: by comparison, US Treasury bonds offer interest of only 3.35%. Nevertheless, stock markets breathed a sigh of relief. It’s amid the current climate of hairtrigger anxiety that Belgium is preparing its own venture onto the capital markets. On 31 January, the government’s Debt Agency plans to offer an issue of €4.5-€5.5 billion in state bonds on the financial markets. To do so, it needs to convince institutional investors that a Belgian bond is an attractive prospect. As usual, the agency works with a number of major banks as intermediaries, such as BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank. The sale takes the form of an auction, with buyers bidding on the interest rate they would be willing to accept for a given amount of the debt.
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ne in three fathers wants more time off work to spend with his new baby and partner, according to a study by the Institute for Equality between Women and Men (IGVM). More than nine out of 10 fathers already take some form of parental leave and, though the legal limit is 10 days, the average period taken is 12 days, with fathers dipping into their annual leave to make up the difference, or even taking unpaid leave. According to the study, a majority of fathers would like the legal minimum more than doubled, to 22 days, as well as being allowed to split the time off between pre-natal and postnatal periods. But one in eight takes less than the legal 10 days, due in part to the state only guaranteeing full salary for the first three days of leave, with subsequent days being partially reimbursed by health insurance. The selfemployed are not eligible for any payment and so are less likely to take time off. “Men don’t know their rights well enough,” commented Geraldine Reymenants of the IGVM.
➟➟ http://igvm-iefh.belgium.be
Designed, sealed and delivered
Design Flanders announces its 2010 Henry Van de Velde Awards Stéphanie Duval
I
t’s every Flemish designer’s dream to win one of the yearly Henry Van de Velde Awards. It’s a boost to a beginning designer’s credibility, and the ultimate validation of one’s work for the more accomplished individuals. It is, without competition, the designer event of the year. Textile designer Diane Steverlynck couldn’t be happier to be handed the Young Talent Award at the awards ceremony last night (18 January) in Brussels. “It’s a recognition that inspires me to keep designing, to keep developing ideas and objects,” she says. “It gives me that extra bit of ardour, of appetite.” Steverlynck runs her own studio, which she founded in 2001 after graduating from Brussels’ La Cambre. She doesn’t feel like a born designer, first concentrating on liberal arts and anthropology before a teacher “finally pointed me in the direction of textiles,” she says. “It’s the perfect combination of design and anthropology, as textile is so close to the human body, and it is present in every culture.” That explains why Steverlynck is not your usual brand of textile designer. She never creates a fabric for another designer to play with; she always designs with a final product – and its use – in mind. The jury compares her work to poetry, attributing it with “rhythm, playfulness, logic and freshness”. The Van de Velde Awards are in fact his year quite taken with textiles. The winner of the prestigious Career Award is Marc Van Hoe, also a textile designer, who earned his reputation through his use of innovative materials and extensive research.
Neither Van Hoe nor Steverlynck are well known outside of the design and textile industry, but their awards could change that. Textile designers are “not as well-known because we don’t always offer ready-made products,” explains Van Hoe. “I hand my inventions over to fashion designers, who make it into a coat, or to interior designers, who uses it to cover a sofa.” But textile designers do more than fondle fabrics all day: “You have to be interested in the arts and in fashion, you travel a lot, and you learn how to pay attention,” says Van Hoe. “You’re in touch with furniture designers and with architects…It’s an undertaking very rich in content.” Flanders in fact has a long and illustrious history in textiles, particularly in wool and tapestries, but also in factory textile production in the first half of the 20th century. But the world has changed over the past few decades. “Anything was possible 40 years ago; people worked hard and made a lot of money,” says Van Hoe. “Now we’re not the centre of the textile industry anymore and have had to give up on mass production.” Still, all is not lost, according to Van Hoe. “Textiles can still play an important role in Flanders because we’re clever and have the necessary experience. We just have to make sure to provide adequate education and not focus on production alone.” These two 2010 Henry Van de Velde Awards are surely a step in the right direction.
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