Belgian collapse is imminent!

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Ecthy


This time the territory will be left over from the linguistic break-up.

Hahar, you can have Eupen, Malmedy en Sankt Vith. They are smelly + insignificant and use germanspeak. You gave them to us after the war, but no thanks

Wallonia will want to join up with France. Then again, France doesn't want a faded industrial and poverty-stricken area. Embezzlement, incompetence, nepotism, clientelism and corruption running through the inhabitants blood are no pluses too!

You can have it, but you'll need to conquer the lands first! Won't be much of a problem with history in mind

[Lancer]

Sounds like two poison pills, one for France and one for Germany.

Someone say something good about Belgium.

[Zkribbler]

Waffles.

[Lancer]

In an equitable division of Belgium who would end up with the waffles, France or Germany?

[Adalbertus]

Germany does need the chocolate. There are Bergian waffles endemic in Germany.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
That's not looking that unlikely, after all, neither half really has a complete claim over Brussels...

That's why I said Brussels should be made a Federal District for the EU.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Traianvs


Hahar, you can have Eupen, Malmedy en Sankt Vith. They are smelly + insignificant and use germanspeak. You gave them to us after the war, but no thanks

Wallonia will want to join up with France. Then again, France doesn't want a faded industrial and poverty-stricken area. Embezzlement, incompetence, nepotism, clientelism and corruption running through the inhabitants blood are no pluses too!

You can have it, but you'll need to conquer the lands first! Won't be much of a problem with history in mind

None of this is likely to happen but hypothetically if Belgium should break up would Flanders prefer independence or joining the Netherlands?

[dannubis]

I'd think we 'd go for independence...

Seriously, Begium has still some usefullness it it left, but only as a very loose confederal state with Brussels being something like a district capital.

[Maniac]

It's called Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Oerdin


That's why I said Brussels should be made a Federal District for the EU.

It's a possible solution for the distant future, but right now it won't work. Walloon claim over Brussels is simply too strong. They're trying to enlarge it by any means possible, even at this very moment.

And besides Europe has not enough integration yet to have some sort of capital city. Remember the Constitution treaty was killed by the French and Dutch not so long ago, and the Irish are being all nasty about the reduced Lisbon treaty... Okay the rejections by most of the naysayers had little to do with Europe itself and rather with national issues or economic recessions (cf. Ireland, although I'm told they also voted against because far too many Poles have infiltrated the country and have taken away jobs. You know, the usual silly arguments).


But you know, in 30 years or so the political landscape might look completely different. We'll see!

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by dannubis
I'd think we 'd go for independence...

Seriously, Begium has still some usefullness it it left, but only as a very loose confederal state with Brussels being something like a district capital.

Mweh, obviously a separatist course only causes problems as we can see now. Nobody trusts eachother anymore, we have little 'common ground' in order to make compromise. Why is that?
We all wanted to just go and seperate all responsabilities. I don't see the point really. If you want to focus on specific problems in Flanders or in certain provinces in Flanders you can do that by issueing measures from a centralized bureau too. Problem is that people think too much in terms of they vs us: if they get some benefit, we need to get ours too. It won't work that way as you can plainly see. Because we had to pay Walloon corrupt officials in order to gain some more power ourselves, we kept the horrible system of clientelism and local despotism alive in the south.

On top of that we lose touch of what the other is doing. With centralized bureaus at least there would be some coordination. People often complain for example, that in Flanders it's far too easy to get a speeding ticket due to all the radars etc, while in Wallonia that seldom happens because there are few of those machines. Well duh, we each want to have our own policy so it's obvious that there will be differences. The paradox is that even though we want our independance with our own rules etc, we want everyone to be treated like we do!

We're so small already, we're losing the advantage of scale if we split up some more anyway.

In my book the moment that sparked this route to independance was when partiest were separated into a Flemish and Walloon counterpart. That's when the bartering started. And since they all had their own constituencies, politicians were simply forced to become more radical in defending their Flemish/Walloon voters. That's democracy for ya: democracy in name only, but seldom for the benefit of the whole country.

Of course one day this country will break up. I'm not eager to see it anytime soon, because it'll be messy. But... it'll happen (hopefully after I die though )

[Heresson]

End of Belgium

[dannubis]

Originally posted by Maniac
It's called Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest.

Indeed, translated literally.

Practically... no. Not even close.

[GePap]

So, did it collapse yet?

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Traianvs
Mweh, obviously a separatist course only causes problems as we can see now...

This is a very familiar sounding story.

Of course one day this country will break up. I'm not eager to see it anytime soon, because it'll be messy. But... it'll happen (hopefully after I die though )

Our cobbled together Federal state won't last either.