A quote from Tony Barber in The Financial Times, 16 July 2008

Flanders has steadily pulled away from Wallonia in prosperity over the past 50 years and the Flemish resent paying taxes to subsidise the poorer south. “The money has not helped the Walloons but turned them into welfare addicts,” declared a recent editorial in The Flemish Republic, a newsletter that supports secession.

Such opinions are hotly contested in Wallonia but economists say there is more than a grain of truth to the argument that the south is more favourable than Flanders to government intervention in the economy. Such differences of political philosophy compound the problems created by Belgium’s geographical and linguistic divisions, its electoral system and the extreme decentralisation of the state.

The pressure for a formal split comes largely from Flanders, where some polls suggest that slightly more than half the population support independence. However, some Walloon political activists favour the union of their region with France – in spite of a not entirely happy experience of French annexation and rule between 1795 and 1815.

 
A quote from Frank Vanhecke in The Flemish Republic, January 2007 [pdf]

Many in Wallonia, the French-speaking south of Belgium, believed that the fake RTBF news item in which Flanders, the Dutch-speaking north, declared its independence was true. This proves that Flemish secession has become a credible possibility. It is understandable that the Walloons panicked, because the Flemings are no longer inclined to continue subsidizing Wallonia as they have done over the past 176 years of Belgium’s existence.

Belgium has corrupted Wallonia. 40% of the Walloons “work” as civil servants, compared to only 20% of the Flemings; 20% of the Walloons are unemployed, compared to only 8% of the Flemings. However, if the Walloons refuse to remedy this situation, if they refuse to pull their act together, if they keep voting for irresponsible and corrupt Socialist politicians who promise that everything will remain as it is, they themselves are asking for the end of Belgium. The Flemings have had enough.

Everyone in Flanders – not just “nationalist extremists” as the Walloon Socialists and the Belgian establishment say – has had enough. Recent polls revealed that more than 40% of the Flemish entrepreneurs and over half the Flemish population are in favour of Flemish independence. Those Flemings who dot not aim (yet) for downright independence, want to reduce Belgium to a confederation of two almost independent states.

Every year 6.6% of Flanders’ GDP is spent on welfare in Wallonia. The money has not helped the Walloons but turned them into welfare addicts. Belgium is a case study of how socialist redistribution schemes lead to economic perversions.

Very soon the RTBF will again announce that Flanders has declared its independence. Then it will not be fiction but reality. It is time for the French-speaking Belgians to wake up. Flanders, once the most prosperous nation in Europe, is about to join the community of nation-states.