“A driving force for separatist sentiment in Belgium’s Flemish north has been frustration at having to subsidise a socialist-orientated Walloon south with its attendant problems of mass unemployment and welfare dependency.”

This is definitely part of the current debate. And even though I cannot rule out the possibility that neoliberals are coopting the Belgian crisis and the poor economic performance of the Walloon south to advance their own agenda, I get the impression, from reading the Flemish press, that this is not so much a neoliberal versus socialist thingy. This runs much deeper.

That said, economic reform in Wallony is indeed vital and the Walloons are aware of that:

http://gov.wallonie.be/code/fr/action_prio.pdf (pdf-Wallony Marshall plan)

I am still reading all the links, but I can already say, as far as the FT thinkpiece is concerned, that the 50% pro-Flemish independence vote is rather contested. I do not know where they got that number from, but it is probably from a poll done by one of the Flemish newspapers and may not be representative. Another poll from the same paper suggests that 70% of the Dutch would be in favour of entering into a union with Flanders… Well, maybe.

it would be nice if Eurotrib occasionally recognised that not everyone in Europe is French

While that may be a criticism that can be thrown at me (I’d argue back, but I understand where it’s coming from), it’s a bit unfair to address it to eurotrib.

and not everyone in France agrees with either DSK or Jose Bove

You give me too much credit? When did I say I was speaking for anyone but myself. How is this about the French anyway? They were not discussed in that post (except for the snide reference to the bonus for the neolibs of seeing that the economic “laggards” in Wallonia are French-speaking).

And as Colman asks, what is a “functioning EU”?

Honest disagreement on points of view is one thing: claiming that “socialist-oriented” “laggards” have failed to take their “reformist responsibilities” seriously - which seems to uniformly mean moving towards a model designed to maximise profit and minimise the share of economic gains accruing to the ordinary citizen - despite the shortcoming of that narrative when it is examined closely is another. That’s not honest disagreement, it’s name-calling.