CRISIS FOR BELGIUM

Press, Volume C, Issue 29444, 21 February 1961, Page 18

CRISIS FOR BELGIUM

Dissolution Expected

BRUSSELS, February 20. King Baudouin is expected to order the dissolution of Parliament today as a solution to the thorniest constitutional crisis of his dine-year reign. The crisis was caused by the walk-out on Friday of the nine Liberals in Mr Gaston Eyskens’s two-year-old Catho-lic-Liberal Government. Earlier, the two coalition parties had agreed to dissolve Parliament this week and to hold elections on March 26. The Liberals quit when the Catholics decided to impose before the elections higher taxes provided for in the new austerity bill, but to suspend until after the poll the bill’s provisions for social service economies.

The King now must decide whether to accept the Ministers’ resignations. If he refuses to do so, the Liberals have announced that they will hold up indefinitely the signature of decrees required to put the new law into effect Acceptance of the resignations would result in an allCatholic Cabinet without the backing of a Parliamentary

majority. Wounded By Terrorist.— Three French soldiers, newly arrived in Algiers, were slightly injured and taken to hospital today after an insurgent threw a grenade at them. The insurgent escaped. —Algiers, Feb. 20.