During a lecture at the Brussels VUB University on Tuesday evening, Belgium's Prime Minister Alexander De Croo strongly criticised the "call of simplicity" of nationalism in the run-up to the Belgian federal elections next year.
During his presentation, De Croo made a plea for democracy, saying that while the dominant narrative often argues for more uniformity, this is not something he necessarily agrees with.
"Democracy is dealing with hundreds, thousands of opinions," he said. "Almost everything you do with people of different opinions leads to better results: a more diverse decision table, therefore, makes the best decisions."
"All my life, I have heard that Belgium is a country of different opinions, with different languages. And that this is a disadvantage, but the exact opposite is true," De Croo stressed. "Our diversity is precisely one of our greatest strengths."
'Call of simplicity'
Therefore, he is very critical of nationalism, abroad as well as in Flanders – where Flemish nationalism is seemingly succeeding at seducing large parts of the population as the latest polls show that separatist parties N-VA and Vlaams Belang are now the leading ones in the region.
"Look at the mess left by Brexit, where economic growth has been a third less than in Belgium since 2016," De Croo said. "Look at Trump, Bolsonaro and Putin."
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"These are the ruins of nationalism, and we talk about them far too little," he said. "Arguments that everything will be better if we all come from the same region, or all speak the same language – that is the call of simplicity. Give me one example of such a lure that did not lead to the mass destruction of wealth."
Still, De Croo recognised that the population of a nation should have something in common. "But I am not talking about our political convictions, skin colour, origin or past, but about a number of values, such as respect for each other."
