The Benelux Fantasy or How Luc Frieden and Bart De Wever Talk Big While Brussels Stays Two Hours Away

Luc Frieden and Bart De Wever want to make Belgian-Luxembourg cooperation “a model for Europe.” Following the Gäichel Summit on 23 March, two declarations of intent were signed—one on security and defence cooperation and the other on cooperation around the GovSat-2 satellite. But behind the polished press releases and the staged handshakes, the question remains: is this genuine progress or just another round of political theatre? On the diplomatic front, the 13th edition of the Gäichel summit was an opportunity to reaffirm the friendship between the two countries and the desire to cooperate even more. Luc Frieden and Bart De Wever want to make the Belgian-Luxembourg Union, and more broadly the Benelux region, a “laboratory of ideas for European integration.” The goal is to speed up the transition to a genuine single market, as recommended in the Letta and Draghi reports. But laboratories are for experiments. And experiments, as we know, often fail. Task Forces, Declarations, and Empty Promises – Why the Belgian-Luxembourg Love Affair Won’t Fix Europe Based on Article 350 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which allows the Benelux countries to integrate their economies more quickly than the rest of the Union, Luc [...]

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