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Alongside Boris' "column" Belgium

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    Alongside Boris' "column" Belgium

    For all you federalists and supporters of all things Europe:

    Belgium has now gone for 144 days without a government and you know what?… everything seems normal.

    Eurocrats are booking their tables at Comme Chez Soi, Moroccan boys are breakdancing in the metro stations, civil servants (there are lots of these) are lingering over their Speculoos biscuits and coffee with gloopy vitamin-enhanced milk substitute.

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    Which prompts the thought: perhaps there should never be a Belgian government. Next week, Belgium will break its previous record for going unadministered, and no one – other than the armies of fonctionnaires who fret for their pensions – seems especially bothered.

    If things carry on, the Flemish administration may be tempted simply to do a Yeltsin and assume the powers of the defunct federation.

    Why am I troubling you with my thoughts on Belgium? Three reasons. First, to quote an unintentionally hilarious line from Harold Evans's memoir of his days as editor of the Times, "It's been too long since we had an opinion piece on Belgium". Western countries don't sunder very often, and the story deserves more attention than it has had.

    Second, because Belgium was largely our fault. Determined to prevent the Channel ports falling under the control of a hostile power, we underwrote the new state, placed a suitable Saxe-Coburg princeling (Queen Victoria's uncle, as it happens) on its throne as Leopold I, and guaranteed it militarily.

    Not that Leopold's heirs were especially appreciative. During the First World War, his grandson, Albert I, offered to switch sides if the Germans would confirm him in his throne and pay reparations. (When you bear in mind why Britain had gone to war in the first place, this possibly ranks as the most ungrateful act in human history.)

    During the Second World War, Albert's son, Leopold III collaborated, and was later forced to abdicate. In short, whatever reasons we may once have had, Belgium has long since ceased to be of strategic value to us.

    But the third reason is the most important. Belgium functions – or malfunctions – on the same basis as the EU. There is no Belgian language, no Belgian culture, precious little Belgian history.

    As the winner of June's election, Yves Leterme, has put it, Belgium resides in the king, the football team and some beers. To paraphrase René Magritte (one of the few unquestionably famous Belgians): "Ceci n'est pas une nation".

    Unable to appeal to a shared identity, the fledgeling Belgian government had to buy people's loyalty though massive public works schemes. Every state institution was dragged into the racket: the trade unions, the nationalised enterprises, the social security networks.

    Belgium, in short, became a microcosm of what the EU is becoming: a mechanism for the arbitrary reallocation of money.

    The Flemish are understandably keenest on severance: they contribute most of the taxes, and resent paying for what they see as their indolent Francophone neighbours.

    Wallonia accounts for 33 per cent of Belgium's population, but only 24 per cent of its GDP. Twenty per cent of Walloons are unemployed, and 40 per cent work for the government.

    Oddly enough, though, I think that French-speaking Belgians might be the chief beneficiaries of a break-up. When commentators say that "Wallonia" benefits from subsidies of 20 billion euros a year, what they really mean is that a handful of Francophone politicians and officials benefit: the grants give them the power to reward their friends and punish their enemies.

    Cut out these grants, and the deadening bureaucracy that goes with them, and Walloons would start making and selling things instead of having to arrange their affairs around their regular fix.

    Wallonia, in short, might prove the Slovakia of the divorce: the poor partner, initially nervous about going it alone, that achieves a stunning growth rate once it gets the hang of things.

    But what of Brussels, the largely French-speaking city that is also the capital of Flanders? Well, here the Euro-enthusiasts have plans.

    If Belgium falls into its two constituent halves, they aim to lift its ugly grey capital out of the state altogether and place it under direct EU administration as a kind of Washington DC: only then would the EU finally and visibly transcend the nation-state.

    The trouble is that this will only happen following a resounding reaffirmation of the national principle. Belgium is failing because there are no real Belgians, just as there are no real Europeans. Rather, there are discrete peoples, with their own languages, television stations and political parties.

    A democracy without a demos – the unit with which we identify when we use the word "we" – is left only with kratos: the power of a system that compels by force of law what it cannot ask in the name of patriotism. And kratos alone cannot sustain a state.
    Let us not forget EU open doors immigration benefits IT contractors more than anyone

    #2
    Yawn...
    Me, me, me...

    Comment


      #3
      For a while Belgium was available for bids on Ebay
      Down with racism. Long live miscegenation!

      Comment

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