Three days after Yves Leterme’s third resignation since the 2007 elections, King Albert II tried to avoid a crisis by refusing the Prime Minsiter’s resignation on Friday 18 July. He designated three emisaries responsible for “examining how certain guarantees may be provided so as to initiate a plausible institutional dialogue”. The three emisaries are francophone, however Leterme remains involved in the institutional negotiations – a means of showing the francophones that the ball is in their court while keeping the favourite Flemish party on their side. Many in Belgium have doubts about the credibility of such a scenario considering the extent to which positions are divided. The issue at stake is “confederalism”, a type of soft division of Belgium, which enables the Flemish to avoid yielding Brussels to the Wallonians, bearing in mind the majority of Brussels is francophone. While the country has long been considered as a laboratory of a plural Europe, the vicissitudes of the politico-institutional crisis that has been lasting since June 2007 keep resurfacing. Let’s hope that the host to the majority of Community institutions will not serve as an anti-model to the ideals that Europe seeks to embody.