21st October 2008

I feel more European since we came to live in France. Britain seems so isolated now, somehow - cut-off by a stretch of water. Watching the French TV news, we get a far more balanced view of what is happening in other countries, but particularly elsewhere in the EU. When did English TV news cover a country like Belgium, for example? Never. Of course, you'll all be shouting at me: what is Belgium for? Not just for the beer, surely? It's a question which many outside its borders have jokingly asked themselves. So, I was amazed to find out recently that even the Belgians are doing so as well, and in deadly earnest. They've seriously started asking themselves whether rich northern Flanders, with its 6 million Flemish speaking people, should break away? There is certainly no love lost between the linguistic rivals in Belgium. It seems that although the Walloons (who speak a French-like dialect) and the Flemings (who speak an entirely different language - a bit more like German) are happy to sup the same beer, how on earth do they understand each other? But the main problem is the ridiculous six governments – at federal, regional, linguistic and community (for the 70,000 German speaking community too small to get their own region) level.
So, what can this tiny country do? The first logical option is to split. The irrational solution is to add yet more bureaucracy to accommodate the different groups. Although I can't believe the people themselves want to split, perhaps the 3.5 million Francophone Walloons should simply join France. Of course, Sarkozy himself couldn't suggest that for fear of inadvertently, but literally, moving into Lebensraum territory. Heaven forbid - especially with his own family roots. History sometimes moves in mysterious ways.