Decline and Fall of the Kingdom of Belgium (DFKB - part 1)

I haven't written here for a very long time. The lack of time I referred to in the previous post, has certainly been the main reason. One of the other reasons was that I was kind of fed up with politics. It is not that I have not been following what is happening in the world, but it is kind of demotivating of describing what happens over our heads.

However, I have always liked writing about stuff that I find interesting. There is a lot going on in the small Kingdom of Belgium at the North Sea. We are currently witnessing the evaporation of the Belgian federal state into at least two separate entities. Whether it disappears in 2007-08 may be a difficult question to answer, but it will not last until 2020. If my spare time allows it, I hope to bring you a series on the slow but steady desintegration of the last multination state in Europe (apart maybe from Bosnia-Herzegovina). Besides a description of the current situation, I would like to dig into history to find out what went wrong.

Do not forget that Belgium viewed itself as a medium-sized power in the Interbellum and that Belgium had the highest GDP of the world in the beginning of the 20th century. Why is it that the country has not managed to keep itself together?

One other thing: I will try to review the situation neither with a regionalist point of view neither with a Belgicist stance. Personally, I have always believed in the Benelux ideal, a united Low Countries that would be a medium-sized power in Europe and an economic world power (e.g. see this post). However, this ideal seems to be further away than ever, considering the fact that the Benelux treaty probably will not survive the end of Belgium.