(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[nation states] – Belgium is a laboratory. If ten million people in this economically developed country fail to build a collective project as a nation state, it will symbolize that even what they are trying to build on a European and international level is going bankrupt.
In these words, Joëlla Milquet, the head of the French-speaking Humanist Democracy Center in Brussels, summarizes the dilemma facing Belgium, the EU and Europe. To the British Daily Telegraph. She points to how the Flemish demands for independence have increased sharply in Belgium in recent weeks:
More than four months after the June 10 election, French-speaking and Flemish-speaking politicians in Belgium have still managed to agree on a coalition government. This is the second longest political crisis in the country's 177-year history. And the Flemish demands for secession are increasing – the most patriotic are talking about an association with their linguistic neighbors in a "Greater Netherlands".
66 percent of Belgians now believe that within ten years the country is divided into a French-speaking, Catholic and Walloon part of the south as well as into a richer, Flemish-speaking and Protestant Flanders in the north. While French-speaking, multicultural and international Brussels – the capital of the EU and NATO – may remain as a kind of "cold war-Berlin" in the middle of nationalist Flanders.
Signs indicate that we now face a crossroads in European history: Where does the border between the national and the international go? Where is the balance between the increased union of the European Union (EU), on the supranational side, and the growing forces of separation on the hyper-nationalist side?
In short: Where will the borders go for the nation states of today's Europe? Exactly the border questions are becoming increasingly difficult to answer: From Scotland in the north, via Belgium's Flanders section to the Basque country in the southwest. From Catalonia in Spain via Lombardy in northern Italy to Kosovo in the Balkans. From Transnestria in Moldova and Romanian groups in Romania to South Ossetia and Abkhasia in Georgia, as well as to Kurdistan in south-east Turkey.
In all of these countries, today's national-state borders are under pressure and strong challenge: In June 2006, Montenegro separated from Serbia and became the UN's 192nd country. Similar demands for independence and new nation states are rising across the continent. Europe consisted of 30 countries in 1989, now it is 48. In 2010 it may be over 50.
New EU Treaty
The demands for independence may seem like a paradox: the EU is becoming more embracing – the union has grown from 15 to 27 countries in a short time – and with the forthcoming reform treaty seems to find a least common unifying multiple. But the question is to what extent the supranational success in Europe is helping to create the breeding ground for the small-state nationalism that is now spreading like wildfire across the continent.
On 19 October, an EU historic breakthrough took place in Lisbon, Portugal's capital. At the informal meeting, it became clear that the leaders agree on the wording of the EU's new Reform Treaty. EU leaders will now sign it on December 13, before the various countries ratify the treaty. This treaty was negotiated in the EU capital Brussels, symbolically enough in a country that is now facing its biggest crisis since its establishment in 1830. The previous constitutional proposal in the EU was voted down in 2005 in both France and the Netherlands. Now the hope is that the milder Reform Treaty will be able to be implemented from 1 January 2009.
But at the same time as the 27-country strong EU is formally gathering, there is a division both within and outside the EU's that puts the whole idea behind the unification project in danger. Symbolically, the danger of a fragmentation of Belgium, the heart of the EU, is the worst. The development is being followed with an arguing eye in Kosovo, the Basque Country and Transnestria, the small breakaway republic in eastern Moldova which since 1992 has in practice been independent with support from Russia. Transnestria now hopes that Flandeern will declare independence so that the republic can receive increased international support for the same. Transnestria's capital newspaper Tiraspol News interviewed Bosnian historian Nebosja Malic in October:
Politically, Belgium begins to resemble Bosnia in 1991, before a brutal civil war. The irony is that Belgium is the headquarters of both the EU and NATO. The core area of "Euro-Atlantic integration", which has launched itself as the very cure for the post-communist countries, can hardly keep itself integrated any longer, Malic said with some joy.
However, his own Balkans face just as big problems. On December 10 or shortly afterwards, Kosovo is expected to declare independence from Serbia, as the last of five breakaways from the former Yugoslavia. Thus, the ring will be closed after the crumbling began with Slovenia in 1991 and after NATO went on a bombing campaign against Belgrade in 1999 to defend the Kosovo Albanians against Slobodan Milosevic's regime.
On October 22, the troika USA, EU and Russia met for another round of negotiations on Kosovo in Vienna. But their negotiating mandate expires on December 10, and there seems to be no agreed solution anymore that can keep Kosovo part of Serbia.
Basque poll
"Kosovo's independence has already been established," Kosovo's Prime Minister Agim Ceku said.
He urges Serbia to accept UN negotiator Marttti Ahtisaari's proposal for "internationally monitored" independence for the province. But in reality, even Serbian leaders see that Kosovo is on the verge of declaring its independence, and that it will happen right after the death line on 10 December. Former Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic told Radio B92 last week:
- Pristina will probably unilaterally declare Kosovo's independence on 11 or 12 December, or possibly due to the Christmas celebration wait until January.
This opens up a number of new opportunities for other people demanding independence in Europe. Russia is strongly opposed to Kosovo's independence, but on the other hand will thus be able to fight more easily for Transnestria to become a UN-recognized country.
And in the Basque Country in northern Spain, the development of Kosovo is being watched with an arguing eye. On September 28, Basque Prime Minister Juan Jose Ibarretxe declared that the two million Basques would hold a referendum on independence on October 25, 2008. He believes independence will be the best solution to end the terror of the basic ETA group, which has been killing since 1968. 800 people in their fight against the central government in Madrid. Spain's ceasefire with ETA is now over. Next year's vote will take place on the date of the rise of autonomy in 1979, after the Basques were strongly oppressed under dictator Francisco Franco from 1939 to 1975.
However, Spanish parliamentarians react strongly to the demands for secession and call them "madness". The Basque Country may seem small, but Andorra in the same region with its 70.000 inhabitants has been its own state since the 1200th century.
The region of Catalonia, of which Barcelona is the capital, also demands increased autonomy. But when the USA was to meet Catalonia for a friendly match in football on October 14, the match was canceled after pressure from the Spanish authorities. And since the Frankfurt Book Fair in mid-October had Catalan literature as its main theme, it provoked strong reactions from Spanish-speaking writers and politicians. Increased demands for independence are like igniting a powder keg in today's Europe.
The European trend
In Scotland, the mood is unlikely to change. In May this year, the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) won the Labor election. Scotland's Prime Minister Alex Salmond has consistently promised his voters a referendum on independence from Britain, which is expected in 2010. The latest proposals from Gordon Brown have only strengthened the fight.
- We will win the vote, Salmond said confidently on October 8. – Let Scotland stand on its two legs and England on its two, and both countries will have a much happier relationship.
Scotland joined the union with England in 1707. Now they want to go out again, among other things by gaining control over oil resources. Salmond constantly refers to Norway, which in 1905 was detached from Sweden, and wants to build up a pension fund based on oil money according to the Norwegian model.
But the nationalist epidemic that is now spreading across Greater Europe also has its dangerous sides. In both Slovakia and Romania, they now fear that the Hungarian minority will be inspired to demand secession. In Greece, they fear that their Macedonians may do the same, and that the Turkish northern Cypriots may be inspired, writes the International Herald Tribune.
Georgia could come into new conflict with Abkhazians and South Ossetians. And in Turkey, there have been clashes with the Kurdish separatist movement in the south in recent weeks. The target is a Kurdistan.
One people, one nation, one flag, one country. The requirement is the same across Europe.