The Netherlands and Belgium reunited? “Never ever.” Fank Lammers says that in Omroep Brabant-Podcast ‘Ni Na Lammers Listen’. The debate about this was raised again by Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever. He called the split of Belgium and the Netherlands ‘perhaps the biggest mistake in history’ and argued for a reunification – although he did that “in a personal title.”
Earlier, two historians explained that it is very unlikely that we will come together again. And that while we share a joint origin story and were together twice in history. That was during the Middle Ages under the Burgundian Empire and from 1815 to 1830 as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
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Frank Lammers has his doubts about a renewed merger. According to him, the Dutch part below the rivers would fit quite well with Belgium. “That part is Catholic, just like Belgium. So we complement each other well.” He also emphasizes his own feeling at the border: “Even me, as Brabander, feel more at home in Belgium than above the rivers.”
But according to the actor, we should not go all the way back to the entire Netherlands. That would be a country that consists of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and also part of France. Lille, Arras and Calais also belonged in the Middle Ages. “Can we only adopt the Flemish -speaking part? Because I don’t need that French part,” says podcast maker Nina van den Broek.
It is joking about the idea that Wallonia might then be better at France. In that scenario, Brabant, Zeeland, Limburg and Belgium would together form a strong front, in which Brabant “suddenly becomes the center of the country,” says Nina. “Then we also have more people with a soft G. That would be fantastic.”
Lammers nuance: “Then you get a kind of Yugoslavia-like situation.” He sketches the picture of a complicated reclassification: “We then shed Friesland, so to speak, and Groningen is then there as a kind of Baarle Duke of the Northern province.”
Yet the love for the culinary benefits is unmistakable. “Think of all those special beers, that chocolate, of those fries with Belgian mayonnaise.” But will it ever happen? No, the makers think. “That time has been,” says Frank Lammers firmly. “And believe me, most Belgians are really not waiting for it.”
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