"The Manneken Pis is like the Eiffel Tower for Paris, " says Ms. De Laveleye.
WSJ: A Naughty Little Statue in Brussels Turns Into a Big Marketing Hit
The Manneken Pis, a tiny, working statue of a urinating little boy, is famous, but intrinsically absurd.
Mr Tusk's main rival, PiS, is benefiting more from the government's mistakes than from its own implausible policies.
"Manneken Pis is one of our national symbols, " says a Belgian Coke spokeswoman.
WSJ: A Naughty Little Statue in Brussels Turns Into a Big Marketing Hit
The challenge to Mr Tusk comes from PiS, which blends patriotic conservatism and prickliness to foreigners with socially minded Catholicism.
And how many PIs would be willing to wade into a controversy by bringing charges against the very same peers who review their publications and grant proposals?
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For most of the past month, the PiS and the two smaller parties have been manoeuvring around each other, seeking to blame the other for the collapse of the government.
Its popularity has slumped, to 29%, barely ahead of the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, which in previous years had been kept firmly at bay by PO.
Among the first to see the sculpture's promotional potential were the German and Australian founders of Manneken Pis Productions, a Brussels graphic design firm launched in 2000 that uses him as its logo.
WSJ: A Naughty Little Statue in Brussels Turns Into a Big Marketing Hit
The prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party removed all ministers belonging to Self-Defence and the Catholic-nationalist League of Polish Families (LPR), replacing them with PiS loyalists and non-party experts.
However, critics argued that these kind of tactics threatened to leave Poland isolated in future EU negotiations and were symptomatic of the PiS-led government's failure more broadly to develop a coherent, long-term strategy in its approach to EU relations.
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