ABSTRACT
Both national and international events have had serious ramifications for the conduct of politics in the Low Countries since the late 1980s. Internationally this concerned the (re-)democratisation of Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the further development of the European Community into a political union and the rapid enlargements since 1995. In particular, the introduction of the Euro and the involvement of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands through the EU and NATO in the Yugoslav internal conflict meant that foreign affairs and Europeanisation became contested in national politics and related policy formation. At the same time, national political developments have left their marks. It appears that the erstwhile politics of accommodation and policy concertation are definitively over: confrontation and competition are – so it seems – the name of the political game at present in the Low Countries.
