A united Europe will be like a 'Greater Belgium', and Belgian political culture has already infected the political mores of the European Union. These are some of the ideas of a new book, to be published in May by Imprint Academic. The provocative title, "A Throne in Brussels - Britain, the Saxe-Coburgs and the Belgianisation of Europe", and the hot and - at least in Belgium - politically incorrect subject, will propably incite spirited debate. The author of the book is Belgian publicist Paul Belien (bio), known as founder of the Centre for the New Europe, and as one of the nine co-authors (in 1992) of the founding declaration of the Flemish Liberal Party. He is often introduced as the husband of secessionist MP Alexandra Colen, and also an outspoken fan of this blog, where he sometimes posts comments.

Imprint Academic announced the book as follows:

If Crown Princess Charlotte had not died in childbirth in 1817, she and her husband, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, would have succeeded to the British throne. But instead the great powers installed Leopold as king of Belgium - a new, artificial state inhabited by Catholic Dutch in the North, and French-speaking Walloons in the South. Belgium is sometimes compared to multilingual Switzerland, but whereas Switzerland grew organically, gradually creating a Swiss national consciousness, Belgium is an artificial state, in which two peoples were forced to live together and where no Belgian national consciousness developed. It could fall apart in the next ten years.

Paul Belien argues that the pan-European super-state currently in the making will resemble a 'Greater-Belgium' rather than a 'Greater-Switzerland', since Europe will also be an artificial construct. Belgium has infected EU political attitudes and acts as a model for the EU - a failed attempt to 'construct a nation' out of different peoples with separate languages and traditions. To learn what the EU as a single state might be like, take up this highly readable mix of history, analysis and warning. You'll never feel the same about Belgium again.

I am planning to publish a full review of this book as soon as it is available. In the mean time, I asked Paul Belien for some clarification. Based on Belien's earlier publications, a.o. in the Flemish secessionist quarterly Secessie and the Flemish weekly 't Pallieterke, and in comments on this blog, I expected the book to contain some politically sensitive historical details about former Belgian kings, a.o. the ties between King Albert I and the socialist party, and between King Leopold III and the nazis. Paul Belien sent me this answer:

My book is mainly a public choice analysis of Belgium. I did not want it to be exclusively academic, but also sufficiently interesting for a large audience, so I wrapped it in a story about royalty, thereby focusing on the ties with the UK, as the book is intended for the English-speaking market. The ties between the Belgian royal family (or more generally, the Belgian establishment at large) and the socialists are amply elaborated. My thesis is that the Belgian construction is based on the ideology of "social corporatism". The ties of the Coburgs with the nazis are also discussed, though only indirectly. Actually, Leopold III favoured Germany during the war because, as he said to Paul Struye: "To be frank: it is impossible to hesitate between German supremacy and English supremacy. England is a social danger".

The main thesis of my book can also be found in an article I wrote for the Salisbury Review in December 2003: A Nation under Construction - Lessons from Belgium for Iraq and Europe.

On European unification, though perhaps there will be no European super state including all of the current 25 members, the danger remains that a Europe with differing levels of integration (the Saturn model) will emerge, with Belgium, France and Germany at the core. This so-called "social Europe" will suffer from all the problems that Belgium currently has.

The book (350 pages, £25) will become available in May 2005, and it can be pre-ordered from Amazon UK, and from Amazon.com, where it costs slightly less than $50.