Old countries, old habits – the WTO column

(later also at Chinabiz)
Brussels - As a kind of therapy I’m currently spending some time at the old continent of Europe. The dazzling economic growth of China is not only a challenge for its environment and natural resources, but it is also rather tiresome for its human participants. So, every now and then I take my R&R in continents that change at a lower pace.
Nice weather, a wealth of terraces, Belgium beer and a relaxed atmosphere make it rather easy to unwind.
Brussels, the capital of Europe, has saved much of its past and culture between also clear signs of change. A wealth of holidays and a Sunday with quite building sites and only few shops open, still slow down pace in an artificial way. Unlike any city in the Netherlands, where I’m from, Brussels has an international flair, fashionable people, with a wide variety of people with different languages and nationalities moving between international institutions and companies. But getting adjusted to some of the old traditions has also been painful. Already in the last leg of my flight, from Munich to Brussels, I noted that most people were reading newspapers, sometimes even several. I found it so much last century.
I have cancelled my last hardcover subscriptions now two years ago and replaced the habit of reading ink on dead trees with selecting online information, sometimes traditional media repackaged, sometimes new sources of information. I know that more conservative news consumers really want to pay for a package of printed papers to arrive at their door, long after the same news has been available online, but that is a dying generation of dinosaurs. At least, that is what I thought, until I arrived in Brussels. There is a reason traditional media survive longer here in the old continent. Compared to China, getting online for a new arrival is pretty hard.
I’m living in a service apartment in the center of Brussels and the idea that an online connection is part of the utilities such a facility should offer has not yet been accepted here. So, every now and then, I’m tempted to actually pick up a paper, as I walk from internet café to internet café.
The first news items I saw on Belgium TV – yes, boredom drove me even to traditional TV again in the evening – was about the exceptional high prices of their broadband connections. They pay 40 euro (400 renminbi) per month for a basic subscription, about three times more than their neighbors in France, where competition has led to much more reasonable prices. Shanghai charges about 12 euro (120 renminbi) per month.
But what is worse, you also have to sign a contract for at least a year. When you are here for a few months, getting connected is almost unaffordable. Officially there is a system to use a dial-up for a local fee, but that screwed up my computer, allowed me to spend money while I could not even reach the website of its provider Belgacom.

I have been complaining a lot in the past about the poor connectivity in China. Of course it offers little consolation to know it can even be worse elsewhere, but you see how the differences in government policies can cause a huge difference in connectivity – and economic development. The few providers in Belgium try to maximize their profits and hurt in that way the economic progress of their country. In China the telecom providers have profitability only on the second place of their agenda, after the development targets of the country.
Well, that now might be a nice example of what is commonly called a market economy with socialist characteristics. Belgium still has its fair number of socialists too, but I do not see their agenda back in the targets of the internet providers.

Fons Tuinstra

Books on Brussels