Flanders encouraged to seek independence from Belgium by EU's growing power

Leaders of one of Europe's most unlikely separatist movements are celebrating each step towards the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty.

By Justin Stares in Brussels
Published: 8:30AM BST 28 Jun 2009

The notion that breaking up a country as insignificant as Belgium could lead to anything more appealing in its place may seem far-fetched beyond its shores. But to many of the six million who live in the Dutch-speaking Flanders region, the growing strength of the EU makes it an increasingly attractive option.

"Belgium is too heterogeneous. There is too much diversity and too many different views," said Jeroen Overmeer, spokesman for Flanders' Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliante party, separatists who made big gains in this month's nationwide Belgian elections.

"The EU makes it possible for countries such as this one to split up. We believe we are experiencing both globalisation and localisation. Some problems are global, like defence or the environment, and these need to be dealt with by the EU. But at the same time democracy needs to be closer to the people, and that is why we are a regionalist party. The two trends go hand in hand."

Tensions within Belgium between Flanders in the north and French-speaking Wallonia in the south have been a fact of life since the the tiny kingdom was created in 1830.

But only in recent years have they become so great that - encouraged by political squabbling that recently left Belgium without a functioning government for more than six months - breaking the country into its main constituent parts has been seriously considered.

The Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliante, which rose from nowhere to take 13 per cent of the vote in the Dutch-speaking northern half of Belgium, believes it would be straightforward for Flanders to survive as an independent region within the EU.

For some EU officials, the mere possibility is a triumph for the institution.

"Yes, regions could survive alone," said Hendrik Theunissen, an official in the forward studies unit of the Committee of the Regions, a Brussels institution.

"The EU does not get involved in internal politics in individual countries, but it is a fact that regions are already well embedded in the EU structures. They opened their first offices in Brussels in the 1980s. Now there are more than 300 of them here. The EU pushes towards decentralisation. Experience shows it has been positive."

In fact the Lisbon Treaty will go further by granting the EU's regions, all of which are represented on the Committee of the Regions, new powers to challenge law-makers in the European Court of Justice, Mr Theunissen says. "We will have the right to go to court to defend out prerogatives if the European Commission is blatantly ignoring our advice," he said. "This puts us on the same level as the national parliaments."

The treaty will also give regions new powers to control the way billions of euros in the EU Cohesion Fund are spent.

Outside Belgium, other EU member states have strong separatist movements, including Spain (both the Basques and those seeking greater autonomy for Catalonia) and Britain (the SNP in Scotland). In Italy the Northern League spent a decade pushing for the creation of an independent "Padania" - to include such northern cities as Milan, Turin and Venice - free from what many saw as the corruption and poverty of the country's south.

More recently it has changed tack and thrown its lot in with Silvio Berlusconi, joining the coalition currently governing the whole of Italy - and earning three cabinet posts.

Some maintain that few national governments will give up their territorial power lightly - and all would, of course, have the right to veto a breakaway region's application to join the EU as a new member.

"Belgium is a particular case because the federal state is weak," said Pierre-Emmanuel Thomann, director of European Institute for International Relations, a Brussels think-tank. "I personally think a 'Europe of the regions' is an illusion. Break-away regions would never be tolerated in countries like France or the UK. They would send in the army."

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