The most common problem in Belgium...

To split Belgium or not?

The division of Belgium is a political project aiming at the removal of the Belgian federation, giving independence to the various Belgian federal states. That can be in many ways, with one certitude: Flanders and Wallonia become independent states.

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Only a small amount of the dutch people plead to reunite with the Netherlands. Same for the people from Wallonia, who want to reunite with France. We call it rattachism.

There are several options for the Brussels problem: 

- A condominium between Flanders and Wallonia

- Attachment tot Flanders or Wallonia

- An independent Brussels state

- Brussels as a 'Brussels D.C. under the direct control of the European government'

History - From French to triple language

After the Belgian Revolution in 1830, the Belgian National Congress declared by decree that the House of Orange was forever excluded from the Belgian throne.

Decree of 24 November 1830 concerning the eternal exclusion of the Orange-Nassau family of any power in Belgium:

'' The National Congress declares that the members of the Orange-Nassau family are forever excluded from any power in Belgium.'' 

Belgium became independent of the Netherlands in 1830. During that period, the good citizenship and high clergy people spoke French throughout the country. In education, jurisprudence and in the army, French was the language of the speech, which meant that most of the Flemish people, who spoke Dutch, became disadvantaged.

After a few decades, there was a quarrel and after a long struggle, the so-called language struggle, the public life in Flanders became Dutch. 

Nowadays, Belgium is a three-pronged country, with the teaching and administrative language different in every region: in the Flemish region (north) they speak Dutch, in the Walloon region (south), they speak French and in the region of the East Cantons, they speak German. Only Brussels is bilingual, even though it is in the Flemish part of Belgian.

And that is because it is the capital of the European Union.

Reasons to split

1. Politically - Democratic

In the view of the nationalists, Belgium is a politically unmanageable and very inefficient state. The more than a year of impetus to the creation of a real government after the 2007 and 2010 federal elections is in this view a consequence of decades of reforms to make Belgium a functioning state. In addition, the Belgian state structure has a major democratic deficit. Here, among other things, reference is made to a difficult-to-sell Flemish majority in Belgian construction through the alarm bell, conflict of interests, parity and lending constitution, which aim to achieve a balance of power. Finally, it is often argued that the country has seven parliaments and six governments, which means the system costs a lot of money. However, the amount of parliaments was introduced to give each minority an autonomy without giving up the federal interest.

2. A nation, a state

We believe that every nation is entitled to its own state. This right is mentioned in many major international treaties, but is still a twist point. This flow thinks that the people from Wallonia and the people from the Flemish part, are two different nations. Therefore they think it is better to give each nation their own part of the country. 

Opponents often encounter the examples of Switzerland and canada where difficulties of Belgian size between language groups would not be present to the same extent, and then argue that the linguistic difference does not have to lead to a division of Belgium. 

3. More and more French

The fringe (= more and more French) of the Brussels area and the facility communities is one of the driving forces for and independent state. Belgium was supposed to be a French-speaking state, where everybody should know French in addition to his daily dialect and should use the language in leading public functions. 

The Belgian Constitution of 1831 provided for freedom of speech. Not until 1898, French and Dutch were considered as equal in the laws and the royal decrees. 

4. Economic

Flanders is economically better developed than Wallonia and Brussels. This leads to so-called money transfers between Flanders, on the one hand, and Brussels and Wallonia, on the other hand. Due to higher unemployment, Wallonia and Brussels receive more social security contributions relative to the population. However, if one looks at social security contributions per province or region, it appears that several Walloon areas, including Walloon Brabant, are more prosperous than Flemish and therefore pay for Flemish areas.

Depending on the calculation method, the size of the transfers varies from three to fifteen bilion euros a year. Official sources come to six to seven billion a year, flowing form Flanders to Brussels and Wallonia. There are people who think that they can invest this money better in Flanders. In addition, it is said that there is such an economic difference between Flanders and Wallonia. So we can become a much more efficient economy in an independent context.