Imagine if the Flemish and Walloons ever fight, it would be like the commercial where demonstrators and riot police battle each other with pillows!

I think you are talking about the Vennbahn, and the odd boder arrangements around that. Since that railway line has been shut since 2001, and it’s tracks lifted, that area may be returned to Germany in the near future.

I don’t know why these odd territorial issues remain. I just remember being driven around the Belgium-German border by an ethnic German Belgian who kept laughing “we’re now in Belgium, ooh now we’re in Germany, ooh now we’re in Belgium”, etc, along the same stretch of road – these were international borders that were meaningless and silly, with narrow strips of land divided between the two countries for no good reason. Perhaps there was some historical reason, but all I could see is fields that straddled these borders, with livestock failing to respect national borders. To Belgians, this is all nonsense and a bit of a joke. I think Belgians would feel comfortable with a break-up of their state if everyone else believed that Europe should be a union of culturally and historically defined regions rather than nation-states. They want the whole of Europe to be like Belgium!

The Belgians are far too polite. I don’t think the Flemish and Walloons hate each other anyway. Ironically, the split is probably inspired by the effective dissolution of the nation state within the European Union – a project the Belgians are enthusiastic about. Living on an island, it is hard for the British to truly appreciate what the removal of national boundaries means. But when you go to Belgium, you realise how absurd this is, particularly with bizarre enclaves-exclaves owned by Germany and Belgium, which are largely uninhabited. These territorial issues no longer matter because nation-states no longer matter. Subsidiarity is enshrined within the Maastricht Treaty and this is what the Flemish are looking towards. They are not interested in a seat on the UN, but the empowerment of their region within the EU. This issue is just one of many the EU will face – keep an eye on Wales, Catalonia, Brittany, Bavaria, etc. The nation state is dead.

If Belgium had not been a founder-member of the European Union, would it now be allowed to join?

No.

And Russians and Ukrainians of Ukraine, ditto.