BELGIUM

Paul Belien wrote a column entitled, THE END OF BELGIUM, and it starts out:

In the early 1990s following the fall of Communism, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia fell apart. Today, the federal Kingdom of Belgium, the last of Europe's multinational states, is beginning to unravel.

In 1830-31, the international powers put Belgium together as a political compromise and an experiment in building one state out of two nationalities.

The country is home to 6 million Dutch-speakers, or Flemish in Flanders, its northern half bordering the Netherlands, 3 million French-speakers or Walloons in Wallonia, its southern half bordering France, and 1 million people in its capital Brussels, an enclave within Flanders, which is also the capital of the European Union (EU).

While capitalist-minded Flanders generates wealth (it accounts for 70 percent of Belgium's GDP and 80 percent of its exports), Wallonia, at the receiving end of a generous welfare system, spends most of the money and vetoes any attempt to reform the system. Every year 6.6 percent of Flanders' GDP is spent on welfare in Wallonia.

Flanders cannot allow this situation to continue. The growing electoral appeal of the secessionist Vlaams Belang (VB) party, which strives for an independent Flanders, pressured the Flemish Christian Democrats to propose the transformation of Belgium into a confederation of two largely independent states with only the king, foreign policy and defense in common.

On June 10, the Flemish Christian Democrat leader Yves Leterme, the son of a Walloon father and a Flemish mother, won the Belgian general elections. The end of Belgium may be nigh.

Related: Diana West of the Washington Times reports on the Belgian police attacking peaceful demonstrators in Belgium who were protesting the Islamization of Belgium.

Paul Belien, referred to at the start of this post, writes another short piece, 'Capital of the EUSSR 2: Belgian Police Grabs Flemings by the Balls'.