Belgians vote on future, united country in doubtFlanders tends to be conservative and free-trade minded. Wallonia's long-dominant Socialists have a record of corruption and poor governance. Flanders has half the unemployment of Wallonia and a 25 percent higher per-capita income, and Dutch-speakers have long complained that they are subsidizing their Francophone neighbors.
But those in Wallonia don't want to join France and France has never expressed any interest in absorbing the region because of its high unemployment and other costs. France also does not to encourage separatism so regions like the French island of Corsica don't get their own separatist ideas.
Belgians vote on future, united country in doubt
I think a break up would be great.
The French section, if they were smart would not join the EU and turn themselves into Liechtenstein, Luxembourg or Switzerland.
Of course they wouldn't though. They'd be siphons on EU cash.
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Yet in Belgium just about everything—from political parties to broadcasters to boy scouts and voting ballots—already comes in Dutch- and French-speaking versions. Even charities like the Red Cross and Amnesty International have separate chapters.
But ... if they split, who gets the king? :/
Do the voters really want to seperate from the rest of belgium or do they seek more autonomy in this federal system?
Aren't we seeing this everywhere? Nationalist/Conservative free marketers becoming increasingly fed up with their spendier socialist compatriots?
National unity. A single, indivisible, central sovereign government with local MP's; much like Turkey, France, Israel so on. I am a fan of such state structures, federal republics are not in the interests of nationhood, unless of course federal government expands so much "federal" merely becomes show work, much like the US and Germany.
I would find it as a Belgian (hypothetically) deeply regrettable the groups that make Belgium would rather disintegrate the nation for there own interests. As a whole Belgium can be more economically viable and politically viable together.
We don't like centralized powers, only a few nobles would like to go back 100 years backwards and have an united Belgium. Now we have to choose between a confederal Belgium (= de facto independent Flanders & Wallonia, but we keep the name "Belgium" and possibly some federal remnants) or completely break up the country.
Well its all very complicated to me. I just dont see why such culturally common people cannot live together under a single national banner. I think the language barriers are a constant psychological reminder that isolates the communities against each other. Would you not think it better Belgian stay as one nation?
Aren't we seeing this everywhere? Nationalist/Conservative free marketers becoming increasingly fed up with their spendier socialist compatriots?
Well we don't see ourselves as "culturally common", we have many particularisms. Besides, it's all about nation-building. Belgium is a failed state because there isn't an important sense of "we-feeling". I present myself as a Belgian here, because Wallonia is unknown abroad, but in RL I feel more Walloon or European, and even when I talk to French people I say I'm a Walloon, not a Belgian. On the other hand, there is a nation building in Flanders. Flemish people have a common project that does not exist on the Belgian level, they have a single language, they have Flemish artists, they have a Flemish history (which is partially re-invented, just like any national history)...
What is a bit funny, is that you are the one telling me why we can't live under a single banned while I think our points of view are switched when we talk about the EU
Bub, is the feeling in favour of union with France growing in Wallonie?
Complete independence for the region would not produce a strong and viable nation, especially if it began by being involved in a, potentially decades-long, political struggle for the control or sovereignty over Brussels.
Might not union with your cultural cousins not produce a better solution? I think that the Vlaams will embrace their nation-hood but have to confront quite a few major unforeseen obstacles in their independent future. The first would be, "now that we have our nation, what do we do with it?" The political energy of so many of them has been devoted to the dissolution of the Belgian state for so long that they will need to reorientate their minds towards other issues that they haven't even thought about. In other words, they'll have to grow up. Quickly.
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