Belgium

Kingdom of Belgium

A crossroads of the Latin and Germanic worlds, Belgium hosts the Union's institutions and carries Europe's dividing line in its very languages.

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Heritage

Today's linguistic frontier roughly follows the old limit of Romanisation. The Flemish cities of Bruges and Ghent were, with northern Italy, the second urban heartland of medieval Christendom; the Flemish Primitives reinvented religious painting there.

History

A Roman province under the name Gallia Belgica, the region became in the Middle Ages a string of principalities and cloth towns among the richest in Europe. Burgundians then Habsburgs aggregated territories that the Reformation would durably split between a Protestant north and a Catholic south.

Independence in 1830 created a neutral buffer state guaranteed by the powers. Its neutrality was violated in 1914 and again in 1940, making the country twice the battlefield of Europe.

After 1945 Belgium made the opposite wager: Paul-Henri Spaak was one of the architects of the Treaty of Rome, and Brussels became the seat of the Commission, the Council and NATO. Six state reforms meanwhile turned the unitary country into a federation.

Milestones

1302 Middle Ages

Battle of the Golden Spurs

Flemish communal militias crush the French chivalry: an assertion of urban power.

1432 Renaissance and Reformations

The Ghent Altarpiece

In Ghent Van Eyck completes the altarpiece that inaugurates oil painting and the Northern Renaissance.

1830 Early modern period

Belgian independence

The Brussels revolution creates a constitutional kingdom, neutral and guaranteed by the powers.

1914 Contemporary period

Violation of neutrality

The German invasion brings the United Kingdom into the war and freezes the Yser front.

1949 European construction took part

Council of Europe

Ten states found in London the first European political organisation, matrix of the Convention on Human Rights.

1951 European construction took part

Treaty of Paris — ECSC

Six states create the European Coal and Steel Community, the continent’s first supranational institution.

1957 European construction took part

Treaties of Rome

The EEC and Euratom are established; the common market and the four freedoms are laid down.

1957 European construction

The Spaak Report

Belgian Paul-Henri Spaak drafts the preparatory text of the Treaties of Rome.

1968 European construction took part

Customs union

Internal tariffs disappear eighteen months ahead of schedule.

1985 European construction took part

Schengen Agreement

Five states sign on the Moselle an agreement progressively abolishing internal border controls.

1992 European construction took part

Maastricht Treaty

The European Union is created, with European citizenship and the timetable for the single currency.

1993 Contemporary period

Federal Belgium

The fourth state reform enshrines in the Constitution a federal state of communities and regions.

1999 European construction took part

Birth of the euro

Eleven currencies are irrevocably fixed; the European Central Bank takes up its functions.

Political landscape

Results of the June 2024 European election and their translation into European Parliament groups.

VB — Vlaams Belang 3
N-VA — Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie 3
MR — Mouvement Réformateur 3
PVDA-PTB — Partij van de Arbeid van België — Parti du Travail de Belgique 2
Écologistes — Groen — Ecolo 2
Vooruit — Vooruit 2
PS — Parti Socialiste 2
CD&V — Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams 2
LE — Les Engagés 2
Open VLD — Open Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten 1

Distribution of European seats

Renew Europe Group 4
Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament 4
Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) 4
Patriots for Europe Group 3
European Conservatives and Reformists Group 3
The Left group in the European Parliament — GUE/NGL 2
Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance 2

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The state in numbers

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Public debt, % of GDP 110.2 % 0.8 % GDP per head (EU = 100) 113.9 1.9 Government spending, % of GDP 54.1 % 1.3 % Total tax burden, % of GDP 44.7 % 0.5 % Prisoners per 100,000 people 106.5 5.2