Belgium has become the archetypal European state. It has devolved so much power upwards to the EU, and downwards towards the regions that it had no need for the layer of government in the middle, national government.
Of course ‘regions’ is what Belgian politics are all about: there are two, of similar size and population, Dutch speaking Flanders in the north and French speaking Wallonia in the south, plus the bilingual or multilingual Brussels district in the middle.
But 'the regions' is exactly what Eurocrats' policy is about, too, splitting Germany up into Laender, France into Régions and Britain into artificial constructs like the North East. People have found maps in Brussels without 'The United Kingdom', 'France' and 'Germany', but with 'Wessex', 'Aquitaine' and 'Rhineland-Westphalia'. They want to get rid of national government.
The problem is the decision making on important things: going to war (done in Belgium by Yves Leterme’s caretaker administration), taxation (of course the unelected want to be in charge of that, and there are already plans for a Europe Tax being proposed), and, most of all, dealing with something proposed by the European Union which one didn’t agree with. Without a government you are powerless, which is exactly how they want you.
I need hardly add that we need to fight this. The Eurocracy, an unelected bunch of what we used to call civil servants but which are now civil masters, wants to arrogate powers to itself such as European budgets, criminal law and justice, health and safety, agriculture, and it wants an army of its own. Any democrat’s sense of justice must be offended by this: we want these important matters to be discussed among elected officials.
My previous statement, that perhaps there was something to be learned, was in jest. We should pity the Belgians, who through petty squabbling have thrown away their democracy. The slack will be taken up by the unelected.
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