Posted on 06/13/2010 4:09:43 PM PDT by americanophile
BRUSSELS — The move to break up Belgium gathered momentum Sunday as separatists won an emphatic election victory in Flanders, the prosperous Dutch-speaking half of the fiercely divided nation.
A stunning electoral success for Bart de Wever’s Flemish nationalist party marks a significant new challenge to the fragile unity of a country where tensions between French and Dutch speakers run deep.
Scheduled to take over the rotating presidency of the European Union in less than three weeks, Belgium will now do so with a caretaker administration and facing months of tortuous negotiations to put together a coalition government.
“We are close to the abyss,” said Lieven De Winter, professor of politics at the Université Catholique de Louvain, who described Mr. De Wever’s win as a landslide. “Whether we are five meters or five centimeters away is difficult to say. But Belgians are at a crossroads where they are making a choice on whether they want to live together or not.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Let the dismantling of the EU begin!
“Flanders would go to Holland and Wallonia to France and perhaps part to Germany and Luxembourg as well.”
As a practical matter, Dutch and Flemish are the same language (they’re indistinguishable on paper, though the local dialects and accents vary), so you’d think merging Flanders and Holland would be easy. It would make more sense than the present jury-rigged arrangement of French and Dutch-speaking regions pretending to be one happy country. From what people who live there have told me, however, the Flemish nationalists want their own country and do not want to join Holland. There are local resentments, grudges, and religious differences, not to mention historic reasons (Belgium came about as a revolt for independence from Holland in the 1830s in the first place). And Holland has enough trouble balancing its own array of political and religious factions to want to absorb millions of new voters. Supposedly, studies have shown that Flanders has the economic potential for sustaining itself as an independent nation. Wallonia, on the other hand, is poorer and landlocked, and union with France might be its best option.
Who cares? Isn’t Belgium the size of about 3 US counties anyway?
...in Flanders, the prosperous Dutch-speaking half of the fiercely divided nation. A stunning electoral success for Bart de Wever's Flemish nationalist party marks a significant new challenge to the fragile unity of a country where tensions between French and Dutch speakers run deep. Scheduled to take over the rotating presidency of the European Union in less than three weeks, Belgium will now do so with a caretaker administration and facing months of tortuous negotiations to put together a coalition government. "We are close to the abyss," said Lieven De Winter, professor of politics at the Université Catholique de Louvain, who described Mr. De Wever's win as a landslide. "Whether we are five meters or five centimeters away is difficult to say. But Belgians are at a crossroads where they are making a choice on whether they want to live together or not."
I like Stella Artois.
I think you’re right about that.
yes
Goooood.
Things getting pretty boring,
Not enough crap going on already.
Scorecards,
Get ya scorecards.
See who’s gonna whoop who’s ass.
Scorecards.
...assuming Belgium can afford to cut itself in half. Splitting up welfare states probably costs a pretty penny, especially if one of the halves would be deprived of a tax base to keep it afloat.
It’s basically Euro Budweiser. I keep some around, along with the serious beers, which coincidentally tend to be Belgian style tripels. Those monks do beer right!
Isn’t that interesting? And they want to shut down the internet here. Can’t stand ‘too much information’ getting around.
And Luxembourg broke away from Belgium. The Netherlands of 1830 was the first Yugoslavia.
Well the West Coast refers to East Los Angeles as well as
Silicon Valley doesn’t it?
Introduce language and ethnic differences and you have a recipe for disaster.
Doubtful.
Canada isn’t just Flemish and Walloon, French and English.
Western Canada has no love for central canadians, be they french or English.
It would have to be Western Separatism, which has picked up considerably.
Belgium is an artificial state created by European diplomats (was it after the Peace of Westphalia?). There’s no reason for Flanders to have to keep having to support the Walloons.
From what I've read on the topic, I would have to express sympathies with the Flemish.
They appear to be the more industrious of the two groups, but consistently get outvoted by the French speaking majority. There comes a point when they simply can't take it anymore.
I'm sure the illegal aliens, sluggards and welfare queens greatly appreciate the taxes which they contribute, don't they?
...except for the fact that Walloons speak Walloon, not French! Walloon is one of those formerly endangered languages that government made mandatory, like Irish and Hebrew.
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