Belgium is a country too often taken for granted by foreign visitors. They fly into Brussels or Antwerp, transact their business and depart little the wiser about where they have been.

About once a decade, however, the international media get briefly obsessed by the idea that Belgium is a country that is about to disintegrate, torn apart by rivalry between its Dutch- and French-speaking communities. The reports usually coincide with interminable negotiations as the two sides haggle over the formation of coalition governments, seeking to reconcile (Dutch-speaking) Flanders and (Francophone) Wallonia. Such reports of Belgium's imminent demise have always proved greatly exaggerated. But the time for such speculation has come to pass again. The four leaders of the Flemish and French-speaking Liberal and Christian Democrat parties are struggling to agree any common programme after 103 days of on-and-off talks, after the general election on June 10. If they carry on past the end of October, they will exceed the record 148 days it took to form a government in 1988.