The people of what should soon be the two countries formerly known as Belgium have survived without a government for 102 days:
Yes, Belgium is the place that Gordon should be watching: because lovely, misty little Belgium, with its triste cobbled streets and Calpol-tasting beer, is now on the verge of a tragic disintegration. For 102 days, the country has been without a government. The Walloons can’t abide the Flemings, and the Flemings want to maroon the Walloons, and there is now a real chance that they will call it quits.
It is a superb and suggestive irony that the people of Europe are now being forced to accept a new constitutional document intended to unify 25 different polities, and yet the desire for national self-government is so strong that Belgium itself – the very country that plays host to the EU institutions – is in danger of breaking up.
I suspect this is just the result of the Brussels bureaucrats playing divide and conquer, but there’s nothing tragic about self-determination, is there? It would certainly be a positive development if the Flemings not only pulled out of Belgium, but in doing so also opted out of the European Union; actually, this should follow as a matter of course since it is the Belgian government which is a signatory of the treaty on European Union, not the Flemish people.
So much for that ludicrous theory that religion causes ethnic division. And if those bloody Belgian bastards can survive without a government, why can’t we?