CERCLE DIPLOMATIQUE - issue 02/2017

LE MONDE BELGIUM
The Bourla Restaurant & Brasserie (top left),
the spectacular reef aquarium at the
Antwerp Zoo (top center) and the
Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal (Cathedral of
Our Lady), home to several triptychs by
Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens.
ANTWERP. The capital of Flanders, famous for its huge port and diamond district.
FACTS &
FIGURES
The Port House. This
construction, made of glass
and steel, and designed by
star architect Zaha Hadid, is
one of the new landmarks of
Antwerp.
becomes a “wegomlegging“. Messages were in Dutch
only, the language of Flanders, the bigger northern
half of the country. Visitors were told, sometimes unquestioned,
the size of Flanders in square kilometres
and its population density, but there was no mention
of Belgium. That did not exist. This was a country
called Flanders. That does not exist either, but for
many of the politicians in this divided society, it was
only a matter of time. ”Long live free Flanders, may
Belgium die“ – so was the battle cry in the northern
province of Belgium, just a month before the elections.
Even today, Belgium seems to be full of deviations
and wegomleggings. Ask an average person on the
street, what‘s typical for this country, you may hear, of
course, Brussels, the unofficial capital of the European
Union with its landmark, the “Atomium“, and
about the endless quarrels between Flanders and
Wallonia. Ambassador Van de Voorde is trying to put
this into perspective: ”If you have different languages
cultures on your territory, that generates a certain
complexity of life. How to share influence and power,
how to develop a vision of how to organise society?
BRUGES. Where the heart of Emperor Maximilian I of Austria is enshrined.
Belgium is not the only example for this. Given the
complexity and the challenges of that situation, I
think, we have managed pretty well up to until now.“
Stephaan Missinne, the President of the Austrian-Belgian
Society (see box page 37) even regards Belgium
as a “test laboratory“ of living together in a unified Europe.
As anywhere, the social tension – with separate
educations, separate languages and even separate
governments – between Flanders, Belgium’s northern
part, and Wallonia, its southern part, are deeply rooted
in history. Much like with the Catalan independence
movement in Spain, language is at the core of it all.
Belgium‘s division rests mainly upon the fact, that its
Walloon inhabitants mostly speak dialects of French
and its Flemish inhabitants mostly speak Dutch or a
slight variation, also called Flemish. The language gap
can actually be traced back all the way to Roman
times, when a battle for influence raged between the
Franks (Germans) and the Romans over Gaul (the
area Belgium was originally part of). For a long time,
the two groups pushed up against each other at a line
PHOTOS: VISITFLANDERS.COM, MILO PROFI, ZOO ANTWERPEN, PETER KNOOP, KRIS JACOBS, JAN D‘HONDT, TOERIS-
ME BRUGGE, MICHEL VAEREWIJCK, SARAH BLEE | NEUTELINGS RIEDIJK ARCHITECTEN, KRIS JACOBS
The Museum aan de Strom.
Literally, the museum by the
river, certainly is one of the
main attractions of the
docks in Antwerp.
formed naturally by connected forests, a line that
roughly corresponds to the modern border between
Flanders and Wallonia.
When the tiny country of Belgium claimed its independence
in 1830, after being occupied by about
every large empire under the sun, including the
Austrian Habsburgs, a Flemish movement was already
on its way in trying to reverse the “enfrenchement“
of the upper classes or beau monde of Belgian society,
which had taken hold during the French rule in the
18 th and 19 th centuries. Soon, the Dutch-speaking part
of the population began fighting tooth and nail for
equal status for their language, which was recognised
as a state language alongside French, two years before
the start of the 20 th century. Subsequently, Flanders
outpaced Wallonia, which formerly had been the industrial
heartland of Belgium, in economic growth
and since the 1960s, official internal borders are dividing
Belgium into four parts: Flanders, accounting for
half of the population of some 11 million inhabitants,
the roughly equally large Wallonia with a third of the
population, the legally bilingual capital of Brussels,
and the small region of East Cantons where German is
spoken.
Actually Brussels, a city of about two millions,
home to the EU and the NATO, with tens of thousands
of affluent foreign professionals and a large immigrant
community, mainly with Turkish background
and from Africa, is trying to make up the balance. But
still, there are no national political parties, no national
newspaper, no national TV channel, no common
school curriculum or higher education. There is,
however, the national debt, running at around 80 percent
of GDP. So, like a couple trapped in a loveless
marriage, eyeing divorce, but unable to agree on the
mortgage liabilities, the Flemish and the Walloons, to
outside observers, seem to be stuck together because
of the cost of splitting up.
Broadly speaking, the Walloons vote for the left,
the Flemish for the right. Flanders is rich and prospering,
contributes about 60 percent of Belgium‘s GDP
of about 420 billion Euro (2016, nominal) and and its
cities such as Antwerp – home to Europe‘s third-biggest
port – are the beating heart of the country‘s economy.
On the other hand, Wallonia – which was
among the first regions in northern Europe to industrialise
in the 19 th century, with industries such as
glass making and coal mining – is nearly depressed,
with twice the unemployment rate (more than 10
percent) of the north, especially in the region‘s faded
BELGIUM
Official Name:
Kingdom of Belgium
Capital: Brussels
Languages: Dutch, French,
German
Area: 30,528 sqkm 2
Population: 11,250,585
(2016 census)
Parts of Country:
Brussels (bilingual)
East Cantons (German
speaking)
Flanders (Dutch speaking)
Wallonia (French speaking)
Currency: Euro (EUR)
GDP: 470.179 billion $
(nominal 2016)
GDP per capita: 41,491 $
(nominal 2016)
Government: Federal
parliamentary constitutional
monarchy
- Monarch: Philippe
- Prime Minister:
Charles Michel
Formation:
4 October 1830:
Independence from the
Netherlands declared.
19 April 1839: Independence
from the Netherlands
recognised.
1 January 1958: Founding
Member of the European
Union (formerly EEC).
The famous fountain figure
Manneken Pis in Brussels.
From left to right: The statue of Jan van Eyck
at the Jan van Eyckplein; the Bonifaciusbrug,
the city‘s smallest bridge; Cuberdons, the
local sweets of Bruges, attracting children; a
look at the historic center by night and
aprons with parts, made of lace.
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Cercle Diplomatique 2/2017
Cercle Diplomatique 2/2017
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