Islam has a legal framework, which covers everything from diet to crime to interest rates, which can be enforced in voluntary tribunal courts; this makes a discussion on Sharia law especially important.
As the E.U. chips away at national sovereignty, with the introduction of the Euro in 2001 or the brand new appointments of a President and Foreign Minister (the former himself a Flemish Belgian) in late 2009, it naturally becomes harder and harder for countries like Belgium to maintain an already precarious national self-image.