Hey Damien, why not make Brussels a purely European city not belonging to either the Flemish or the Walloon parts of Belgium? To me that sounds like the current actual situation already anyway.
I’m with you on Europe though. But I’m not for a United States of Europe modeled after the United States of America. The member states of the European Union have enormous cultural differences. They need their own leadership and have their own priorities to successfully serve their citizens.
I don’t think that centralization of power leads to more democracy (or, better living standards. As I sometimes question whether “democracy” in its current form actually serves the population well). Cooperation, however, could and should be strengthened. Perhaps have a much better way to get a consensus by all member states over the world’s problems?
Problems such as the energy crisis that we’ll most certainly face in about 15 to 20 years when the world will run out of oil, the increasingly alarming state of global warming, Kyoto protocol agreements, a strictly peacekeeping military force that would empower an organization like the United Nations to act without neoconservative-guided policies during conflicts, a court system that brings justice to victims of war crimes and puts war criminals in jail (not just hang them, using a fake trail. A real, serious and fair trial is very important for the significance of the verdict. Read Jan Wouters‘s books on the subject). Even if that is a politician of a wealthy Western country. Perhaps Europe could indeed unify a bit more on education, science and scientific research? Maybe… maybe not.
I don’t want a United States of Europe to rule over each and every aspect of citizenship in all the current European countries. To give an example: in some countries a ban to hunt foxes might mean that a large amount of farmers will see their animals getting killed? In Belgium, however, we might want to protect the species? In one European country perhaps the citizens need more railroads and trains, whereas in the other there is a high emphasis on traffic over highways and doesn’t it make a lot of sense to put extra taxes on truck drivers (or would such regulation bring the economy of that region to its knees).
In one country social security is important, in another there might be other priorities or there is perhaps a different system already in place that has served people for ages (although I do think social security is a top priority, I don’t believe it should be a stupid Belgian like me who should decide for another country whether or not they need it). Why change this? Because some people want a huge monolithic Europe? As if those people in Brussels know better than the local politicians of countries? I don’t think they do.
So yes, let’s do Europe and let’s make it significant. But let’s not hurry too much. Let’s give it time and see what works, rather than making the same mistakes that another country is making today. I don’t believe we would do it a lot better. In fact, our European culture of wars teaches us our countries didn’t do any better in the past.
Does that mean that Belgium should not take care of its current problems, because maybe in a few decades we’ll have a Utopian European something? I don’t think so. Let the Belgian voters speak, and let the Belgian politicians act based on that. Today.
Edit: crap, now that I wrote this piece of opinion, I realize that I’m going to get eaten by the politic lions of the blogging world. Heh, too late now :-\