Will Belgium survive?

More news from France. Causeur, which is according to one of my correspondents, one of the two best news sites in France (so I had better bookmark it) ran a story, which was then picked up by Le Monde. It seems there was a fairly high-level discussion of experts on Belgium (yes, I am afraid so), including the present and previous French ambassadors, on the future of that country. Undoubtedly, it was to stop this kind of discussion going on that Viscount Palmersong Palmerston [apologies for that egregious error], then Foreign Secretary, actually decided to create the country. I am not sure it was one of his more successful achievements but, perhaps, he never intended it as more than a temporary solution.

Anyway, no agreements have been reached but there are clearly some thoughts among French diplomats and political analysts that Belgium as one country may not survive for long. Of course, the European Union, in theory, does not care whether its member states survive as they are now or whether they break up into contingent parts or regions. That is the theory. But a real break-up, rearrangement, possibly the creation of an even "greater" France will not cheer the colleagues much as nothing is so unpredictable as any change in the accepted internal borders. Who knows where such a change might lead to.