What if there were no Belgium?

By Emma Davis

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Should Belgium break up? Would anyone in the rest of the world notice? Should they care?

These are some of the questions being raised in a media frenzy both in and outside the country as a political impasse has fanned the flames of separatism in the Dutch-speaking north.

More than three months after national elections, political leaders have failed to form a government, stymied by age-old rivalries between the Dutch and French speaking communities.

France's Liberation splashed "What if Belgium splits..." on its front page last week while The Economist called for a "praline divorce" -- presumably a Belgian variant of the "velvet divorce" that split Czechoslovakia peacefully 15 years ago -- saying Belgium had outlived its purpose.

Seen by many as an unhappy marriage between the Anglo-Saxon north and Latin south of Europe, Belgium has often been the butt of jokes from its French and Dutch neighbors.

An old parlor game in which players have to name 10 famous Belgians leaves many stumped after just two or three.

But political scientists say the nation of 10.5 million is a model of peaceful co-existence, as well as the source of some ubiquitous inventions such as the saxophone and bakelite.

"Belgium is an interesting experiment in governing together without bloodshed. It's something that might teach other places in the world like Northern Ireland or Cyprus," said Kris Deschouwer, political scientist at Brussels Free University.

While the two sides like to tease each other, with Dutch speakers from the affluent north often describing their southern Walloon fellow citizens as lazy, violence is extremely rare.

"The Flemish movement has not been violent. It is no ETA," said Jean-Yves Camus, political scientist and research fellow at the Institute for International Relations and Strategy (IRIS) in Paris, referring to Basque separatist guerrillas in Spain.

"Often other groups are using terrorism and are not backed by their people."

DOMINO EFFECT?

Some commentators say a split could have a domino effect with other separatist groups in Europe claiming independence.

"If Belgium breaks up then many would follow. This could be seen as part of the end of the nation state," said Carl Devos, professor at the University of Ghent.

He said Spain, where Catalonia's parliament has declared the region a nation within Spain, and Britain, where the Scottish National Party recently became the biggest party in Scotland's parliament, were obvious candidates.