Not to nitpick, but they've got, like, three times that.
would pay all those trillions of Euros, simply to have a larger layer of bureaucracy lording it over them.
Because they're socialists. Socialism requires bureaucracy. Also, Germany is in the EU. And Germans love bureaucracy.
And BELGIUM spending all those trillions? What a concept.
Remember the Maginot Line? Everyone always makes fun of France for that.
French Guy: "Haw haw haw! We have feeneeshed ze Maginot Line! Ze Germans weel nevere get past eet! Oh, no! Ze Germans are goeeng a-round ze Maginot Line, through Beligium, pre-cisely like zey deed last time! Quickly, surrendere!"
Thing was, the Maginot line was supposed to extend all the way to the North Sea. The reason why Germany was able to go around it was because Belgium is a bunch of slackers and didn't finish their part of the Maginot line. They were too busy making waffles or something.
So yeah, I'd trust France with national defense before I'd trust Belgium with anything.
"Thing was, the Maginot line was supposed to extend all the way to the North Sea. The reason why Germany was able to go around it was because Belgium is a bunch of slackers and didn't finish their part of the Maginot line. They were too busy making waffles or something. "
IIRC the design of the Line anticipated that belgium would be aligned with france in any future conflict and would allow french military deployment in belgium well before any german build-up actually resulted in invasion. In the event belgium declared itself neutral and didn't allow the french in, thus...