Belgium is the European Union

“As the winner of June's election, Yves Leterme, has put it, Belgium resides in the king, the football team and some beers. To paraphrase René Magritte (one of the few unquestionably famous Belgians): "Ceci n'est pas une nation".

Unable to appeal to a shared identity, the fledgeling Belgian government had to buy people's loyalty though massive public works schemes. Every state institution was dragged into the racket: the trade unions, the nationalised enterprises, the social security networks.

Belgium, in short, became a microcosm of what the EU is becoming: a mechanism for the arbitrary reallocation of money.

[…] If Belgium falls into its two constituent halves, they aim to lift its ugly grey capital out of the state altogether and place it under direct EU administration as a kind of Washington DC: only then would the EU finally and visibly transcend the nation-state.

The trouble is that this will only happen following a resounding reaffirmation of the national principle. Belgium is failing because there are no real Belgians, just as there are no real Europeans. Rather, there are discrete peoples, with their own languages, television stations and political parties.

A democracy without a demos – the unit with which we identify when we use the word "we" – is left only with kratos: the power of a system that compels by force of law what it cannot ask in the name of patriotism. And kratos alone cannot sustain a state.” Daniel Hannan, “If Belgium can’t survive, what hope for the EU?”

Comments

[Craig]

But what is the alternative to the EU? The fact is, national governments are becoming more irrelevant everywhere, the economic forces of globalization are increasingly dictating the actions of governments. To what 'demos' are the laws of the global economic order accountable to? The answer is none. The EU is an attempt to change that, no not every one is an active 'European', but the EU in allowing you to live, study and work anywhere, certainly gives you that option (and many young people, myself included, have grasped it). The EU does not have a ready-made 'demos', but no nation upon it's inception did, and what's more, no one is talking about giving the EU all power. Subsidiarity rules, where a regulation is best done at the continental level (mainly economics) so be it, if it is best done at the national level (healthcare, educatione etc.) then so be it too.