"France may end up annexing Belgium"
Aug. 1st, 2008 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
danlansdowneFrom the Daily Telegraph
"In the event of a break-up of Belgium, France might seize the southern chunk. A new poll in Le Soir shows that 49 per cent of Belgian Francophones now favour incorporation into the Republic, up from 22 per cent at the end of last year. At the same time, 60 per cent of French voters want to absorb Wallonia."
The breakdown in political relations in Belgium brings two things to mind:
1) Yet another multi-ethnic (for lack of a better describer) European nation is on the verge of biting the dust, following Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the late Austro-Hungarian Empire of the previous centuries. It makes one wonder why these nations haven't taken any lessons from Switzerland. Here's a country that's been around for nearly a thousand years, made up of three or four different ethnic and linguistic groups, and they've managed to keep it all together. I would imagine the regular consultation of the populace contributes to this; they hold referenda on almost everything.
2) How do they expect the EU to survive through the next century if the only remaining multi-ethnic (again, lack of a better word) country in the organization can't keep itself together? Not exactly the greatest harbinger for the EU if the country it's mainly headquartered in can't keep itself together. If the EU follows this pattern, Europe is going to destroy itself again by 2050. As it is, Britain, Ireland, and some of the newer members in the east are wary of the EU's intrusive policies.
And what of other multinational organizations headquartered in Brussels, like NATO? They can't really move to Switzerland, because Switzerland isn't a member of any of them. And I doubt the fighting over the future headquarters of NATO et. al. is going to be pretty if the members decide that Brussels isn't a good location any more.
The next few years are going to be interesting in northern Europe.
"In the event of a break-up of Belgium, France might seize the southern chunk. A new poll in Le Soir shows that 49 per cent of Belgian Francophones now favour incorporation into the Republic, up from 22 per cent at the end of last year. At the same time, 60 per cent of French voters want to absorb Wallonia."
The breakdown in political relations in Belgium brings two things to mind:
1) Yet another multi-ethnic (for lack of a better describer) European nation is on the verge of biting the dust, following Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the late Austro-Hungarian Empire of the previous centuries. It makes one wonder why these nations haven't taken any lessons from Switzerland. Here's a country that's been around for nearly a thousand years, made up of three or four different ethnic and linguistic groups, and they've managed to keep it all together. I would imagine the regular consultation of the populace contributes to this; they hold referenda on almost everything.
2) How do they expect the EU to survive through the next century if the only remaining multi-ethnic (again, lack of a better word) country in the organization can't keep itself together? Not exactly the greatest harbinger for the EU if the country it's mainly headquartered in can't keep itself together. If the EU follows this pattern, Europe is going to destroy itself again by 2050. As it is, Britain, Ireland, and some of the newer members in the east are wary of the EU's intrusive policies.
And what of other multinational organizations headquartered in Brussels, like NATO? They can't really move to Switzerland, because Switzerland isn't a member of any of them. And I doubt the fighting over the future headquarters of NATO et. al. is going to be pretty if the members decide that Brussels isn't a good location any more.
The next few years are going to be interesting in northern Europe.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 04:16 pm (UTC)It's been said that natives in the Americas and other areas conquered by Europe had the disadvantage of intertribal discord. That can't have been the biggest factor, given Europe's divisions.
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Date: 2008-08-01 04:24 pm (UTC)It's turned into the war between the Big-Enders and the Little-Enders in Gulliver's Travels; they've fought each other for so long, they've forgotten what the war was about.