2007-05-19 Belgian Election

Federal election in Belgium will take place the Sunday 10 June. I was wondering what is the different political programs of each political party and their vision of our future society. I was a bit disappointed to see how large and vague the political concepts are in their programs. Political parties don't take risk to improve our society, they are just giving a nice and global vision to catch the maximum of people. They give an impression that nothing can't be easily enhanced in our societies…

Looking at the colorful advertisement of the political candidate in the street, I was wondering what we can improve in our societies (just in my eyes)… The idea is to share the ideas among the Belgian citizen and maybe propose some of them to our political representatives.

• The incorporation of an article in the Belgian constitution to promote non-violence and promote world peace (to avoid Belgium contributing to conflicts outside Belgium). Something like the famous Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution would an interesting improvement.
• The removal from the 2001/29/CE directive and its Belgian transposition of the famous article "Technical Protection Measures". The protection of technical measure has nothing to do with the authors' rights.
• Proposing a directive or an update to the authors' rights in Belgium to limit the number of orphan works. Something like if the works is not actively exploited in period of 20 years after its first publication, the work is loosing his protection and will become part of the commons.
• Limiting the validity of the authors' rights (copyright) to 20 years after its first publication. That would need a change in the international treaties but would have at least the advantage to counter balance the current proposal of extension by the big editors for 90 years after the death of the author. Maybe 20 years after its first publication won't be reached but at least it'll bring some competition against the current never-ending extension.
• Merging the current dual-circuit (libre and public) education system into one to limit the cost of education and improve the current system. I know this one will be difficult in Belgium… but why not ?
• Merging the "Communauté Française" and "Region Wallone" in one structure like the flemish part of Belgium already made some years ago.
• Moving the "drug policies" from a criminal matter to a public health matter. Reaching a controlled production system instead of the current black market. Where the money generated from the revenue can be used for the public health awareness.
• Stopping the current use of electronic voting system and keep the simple paper voting approach. The current budget for the electronic voting could be used to improve the current paper voting process.

The list is clearly not exhaustive but if at least two propositions could be taken out by a political group. I would be very happy. I know I'm an idealist and worst, I'm Belgian…

Tags: blog idealist copyright politics belgium society

geo: Les Bulles, Chiny