Bart de Wever, the Flemish politician who promises the "evolutionary evaporation" of Belgium, is now the political kingmaker in Brussels. The bureaucrats and politicians of the European Union, who also hang out in Brussels, will therefore have a ringside seat for the dismantling of the Belgian state. They should pay close attention, for their own turn may be coming.

De Wever's New Flemish Alliance won 28 percent of the vote in Dutch-speaking Flanders, the northern half of Belgium, in the national election June 14. Elsewhere that would not be an impressive result, but in the highly fragmented Belgian political system it counts as an avalanche.

A long struggle will now ensue while the many Flemish and Walloon parties struggle to form a coalition with a parliamentary majority. It's always a struggle, because there is very little by way of shared identity between the Flemish and the French-speaking Walloons. (After the 2007 election, it took 200 days to negotiate a coalition, and then there were three governments in three years.) Belgian politics has reached a state of semi-permanent paralysis.