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Why the Belgian federation should be dissolved and Flanders should become an independent state. |
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Press Review: A Praline Divorce Is in Order
11/01/2007 :: Flanders is more a mixture of social conservatism and free-market thinking, while Wallonia is a bland of social liberalism and socialism. The economic development of both regions is dramatically different. Thriving Flanders feels it is subsidizing bankrupt welfare policies in Wallonia. Wallonia feels that greedy Flanders is abandoning solidarity in her hour of need.
(Prof. Marc De Vos, The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 10, 2007)
Belgium was formed as a constitutional monarchy where the non-French speakers were mostly treated as second-class citizens. Even today, 177 years later, there are no national figures or national political parties. Each party represents its own ethnic, linguistic or regional enclave. But, although the Flemish majority is somewhat more prosperous, the Walloons have a perceived stranglehold on Belgian politics.
(Jonah Goldberg, The Los Angeles Times, Oct. 9, 2007)
Unemployment in Flanders is 9 per cent compared to the 17 per cent in Wallonia and over 15 per cent of the receipts of the French-speaking south come from the wealthier north. “Why should we pay for these lazy left-wingers” is an oft repeated complaint in Flanders.
(A leader in The Hindu [India], Oct. 3, 2007)
While the Flemish make up the majority, with almost 60 per cent of the population, political power must be shared equally with the Walloons. And if half the country's 40 per cent of French speakers, making up only a fifth of the total population, want to block a new government coalition, they can. This is the mix that is making the formation of a new Belgian government next to impossible.
(Bruno Waterfield, The Daily Telegraph, Oct. 3, 2007)
What enables Wallonia to block formation of a government is a parliamentary system where Flanders and Wallonia must each assent to any government. Which means that half of the Walloons, 20 percent of Belgium’s population, holds veto power over a national government.
(Patrick J. Buchanan in his syndicated column, Sept. 28, 2007)
To me there is no denying that Belgium can seem like an argument between the more “Anglo-Saxon” Flemish and their French-speaking neighbours
(Mark Mardell, BBC, Sept. 27, 2007)
Belgium is about to break up, something I fervently pray for. Belgian politicians are a disgrace — French-speaking ones, that is — and the quicker the Flemish majority gets rid of bums like Louis Michel, the better for the rest of us Europeans.
(Taki, The Spectator, Sept. 22, 2007)
If Belgium does go down it will provide only the latest and starkest reminder of the endurance of ethnic nationalism in modern Europe and the corresponding failure of elitist supra-nationalists to forge larger identities holding any real meaning for ordinary people. Despite obvious differences in the historical contexts, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia – the last case much talked about these days in Belgium – all collapsed for that same underlying reason.
(Robin Shepherd, The Financial Times, Sept. 18, 2007)
Almost every second Flemish person, or 46.1 percent, wanted Belgium to split, indicating separatists in the region are gathering momentum.
(Reuters, Sept. 18, 2007)
The tectonic plates of Germanic and Latin Europe rub up against each other along the line that separates Flanders from Wallonia just south of Brussels. The tremors are getting worse.
(Ian Traynor, The Guardian, Sept. 17, 2007)
Taxation and underrepresentation are the essential watchwords. Capitalistic and Dutch-speaking [Flanders] generates about 70 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). With the top income-tax rate at 50 percent and the nation’s public outlays constituting a staggering 46 percent of GDP, it is not hard to see who benefits from tax-and-spend Eurosocialism and who is hurt by it.
(A leader in The Washington Times, Sept. 14. 2007)
Today, Belgium is a microcosm of the E.U.: bureaucratic, undemocratic, corporatist. As the author Paul Belien argued in his book “A Throne in Brussels,” the “Belgianisation of Europe” is already far advanced. If the European Union is to be given back to its constituent peoples, Belgium might be a good place to start.
(A leader in The New York Sun, Sept. 11, 2007)
Flanders was a long-standing friend. Let’s bring it back.
(A leader in The Daily Telegraph, Sept. 8, 2007)
Belgium has served its purpose. A praline divorce is in order.
(A leader in The Economist, Sept. 6, 2007)
Article in issue nº 20
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