Analysis: Should the world be more like Belgium?

By Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS | Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:21am EDT

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - This is a European country riven by ethnic tensions. Its public debt is almost as big as its total annual output and it's in the middle of a political crisis so deep that this week it passes Iraq as the modern-day state whose politicians have taken the longest to form a government.

Yet the buses run more or less on time, the garbage is collected twice a week, exports of pharmaceuticals, steel cord, chocolate and beer are uninterrupted -- and it can still take about a month to get a new telephone line.

To read the full article, click on the post title. Really worth.