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'Beating heart of Europe': Belgian PM wants to make Benelux into one country (www.brusselstimes.com)

submitted 4 hours ago by ardi60@reddthat.com to c/world@lemmy.world

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[–] testaccount372920@piefed.zip 9 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The idea of the Netherlands and Belgium merging is completely detached from reality, adding Luxemburg to that picture makes even less sense. Economically it could be great with the combined harbors of Antwerp and Rotterdam. But historically and culturally it clashes, even between The Netherlands and the Dutch speaking part of Belgium.

[–] azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 3 points 45 minutes ago

De Wever is a far-right populist, this is just bluster.

Don't forget about the political clash as well. Flemish separatist movements have always ran into a brick wall: Brussels is majority French-speaking, entirely within Flemish territory, and wants nothing to do with their nonsense. No matter how much Flanders might want to cut off Wallonia and reunite with their orange daddy, they won't be able to bring Brussels with them, and that would be political and economic suicide.

[–] kubok@fedia.io 1 points 1 hour ago

I have seen too much cultural resentment toward the Dutch for this to be a viable scenario, both from the Flemish and the Wallonian side.

Also, both the Dutch and the Belgians are deeply racist. You can't unite racists. (Source: am Dutch)

[–] _Nico198X_@piefed.europe.pub 4 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

i'm all for consolidation where it makes sense, but Belgium would REALLY need to up their game to rise to the level of the Netherlands. they'd basically just need to become Nederlanders and do things that way.

[–] Photonic@lemmy.world 8 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

A Dutchman only need to drive across a Wallonian road once to know how bad of a deal this would be for both The Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Two of the best-managed countries in Europe would have to drag their retarded middle brother everywhere and wipe his mouth every time he eats.

[–] Lembot_0006@programming.dev -5 points 4 hours ago

No idea what they think about it themselves, but I (not a citizen of EU) would rather see Niederlanden out of this. In my classification Niederlanden is a more or less nice country (I'm talking about foreign politics, not weed), Belgium is shit and Luxembourg is small and I haven't heard about them anything. So the mix would inevitably be just shit.