To add further into our awesome videos about countries and cultures I take a unique spin on these videos and do a good old-fashioned
what-if scenario and in the past
I've looked at the great country of Belgium and the amazing culture from Luxembourg and have noticed that the two have a very linked history
But today I asked the question what would happen if these two countries join together? Hey guys, what's going on?
Welcome to FTD facts the channel where I look at people cultures and places from all around the world
My name is Dave Walpole and thanks for joining me here today
now
we are gonna look at these two countries and we're gonna put them together and see what would happen now like all the countries of
Europe there's a lot of bleeding of culture that goes into every single nation for example
both of these countries were actually a part of the Carolingian Empire until
1843 which basically that's when the Holy Roman Empire came in and
Split the region of Belgium which was put in to west and east francia
of course for this i'm just going go into a little bit of history about these two because they kind of have been together but
Separate in the past because later on belgium became under the rule of the Netherlands and Luxemburg were under French rule
But however by the 1800s, both of these countries didn't really want to do this and they're like no no no, no
No, we're gonna go and do our own thing. Thank you very much. And with this in mind Belgium got its independence in 1830
However, Luxembourg got it shortly before in 1815. This happened shortly after the Napoleonic war in which
Luxembourg became the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which was within the German Confederation
Belgium, of course around that time became part of the Netherlands, but like I said, it was about 15 years later in 1830
They were like, nope
We don't want to be part of the Dutch which by the way
I just want to make a mention that I also have a lot of people from the Netherlands watching these videos
So, you know sorry Dutch. Yeah, it's not me. It was the Belgium's back in the day
They had a problem with the Netherlands. I don't know what it was but
something but anyway, so let's get away from history and let's look at what would happen today if these two were brought together as one
Independent nation, of course for this I'm talking about Luxembourg as a country not the southern area of Belgium known as Luxembourg
This is basically kind of like my theme of the country because when I saw Luxembourg, oh my wait a minute
There's already a there's two Luxembourg's that is really confusing
And of course there is the big thing called Benelux, which I'm going to get into this video which already exists
however
if these two or one
Well Belgium has a population of approximately 11 million four hundred
Twenty thousand one hundred and sixty three people ranking 80th in the world now guys, that is just an approximation
I don't know if they actually get down to the exact number
Hopefully there's nobody living illegally within these countries, but you just never know Luxembourg
However has a much smaller population of six hundred and two thousand and five people
Basically making this country ranked one hundred and sixty nights in the world
As a matter of fact some cities have more of a population than this entire country
There's nothing wrong with that as a matter of fact Luxembourg does a lot for the global economy even with such a small small
Population however together they would rank seventy seventh in the world being right under South Sudan with a combined population
Of twelve million twenty-two thousand one hundred and sixty-eight people again
That's just an approximation
Same lens size. Let's take a look as well
now Belgium itself is approximately thirty thousand five hundred and twenty-eight kilometres square where
Luxembourg is only two thousand five hundred and eighty six point four
kilometers Square and currently right now Belgium sits at like a hundred and thirty seventh in land size and that
Wouldn't change even if Luxembourg joined it or if they joined Luxembourg
I don't know how it works either way
Their total combined size would be approximately thirty three thousand one hundred and fourteen kilometers square
but now one of the biggest questions is the kind of government that would happen and the amount of
Control, there would be a lot of major what-if scenarios here. Basically, both countries are classified as parliamentary
Z-- but however, Luxembourg is a unitary
parliamentary where Belgium is a federal
unitary means that the government pretty much makes all the major decisions and in a federal type of
Parliamentary or any form of government these state and provinces have their own
Constitutional protected sovereignties and of course, they share their certain rules and regulations with a central form of government
But they have the final say Elise in some fields some means certain things. They're different
but however
One of the biggest problems that we would look at when it comes to these two countries coming together
Would be the idea of the Monarchs. What do you do with them because each country has their own for Luxembourg
they have Henry ruling as their monarch and Belgium has Phillipe and
deciding what to do with these two monarchs would be a very tough thing to do because it would be the question of who has
more power who has less power
I mean do they get rid of the Monarchs altogether?
And of course, there's the theory that one could get abolished and one could come in as rule
but however
because these two have a good
Relationship I wouldn't be surprised if this did happen that the country would have what is known as a dire key?
Basically, meaning that there are two monarchs for the one country. Keep in mind. You might think that that's really weird
This does exist in certain countries today. Some of these countries are Andorra
But an and of course there is Ireland San Marino and Swaziland
now one thing that really wouldn't change and I mean I'm looking at the things that would change and the
Things that wouldn't is money money would pretty much stay the same
Simply because both of these countries already use the euro, so nothing would really change there
But of course Belgium and Luxembourg are both powerful nations within the European Union
So there could be the question of whether or not this country adopts its own form of currency
You got countries like Sweden which they use the krona
But they are part of the EU and could sit on the topic of money. Let's look at the gross domestic product
I like to use the purchasing power parity because it's a good way to compare nations that are from all around the world, basically
Belgium's GDP purchasing power parity comes in at five hundred and fifty billion dollars ranking 38th in the world while
Luxembourg has a GDP of 70 point nine to six billion dollars ranking 70th
of course combined you would think that that would come in to
620 GDP but
It might not because there's a lot of trading going back and forth
But they're kind of isn't this is where it gets a little tricky. So normally with these videos
I do like to take a look at the amount of trading that goes back and forth because sometimes there's
Sale taxes and certain things like that
And if they're all under one country, they would no longer theoretically be trading to each other. They would be trading within their own
country so it wouldn't really count but the hard part is with EU countries comparing to each other is some countries have very
Good tax deals with each other some countries don't even have taxes with each other some have higher taxes
It's all dependent on the country. For example in history, especially when it comes to these two countries
There was a thing called the BL EU which was the Belgium Luxemburg economic union
and this was actually somewhat a precursor to the Benelux Union which currently exists and the Benelux Union is the
Combination of these two countries with the Netherlands as well which by the way Benelux on its own is a very fascinating
union that I think that we should look at and if you guys just want like a video on 10 awesome facts about
Benelux
You know just hit that like button and I will look into it
Because one of the fascinating things about the Benelux system is it's sometimes seen as a form of government
This is because it has its own form of parliament and it has its own form of
Legislature as a matter of fact the entire GDP of the Benelux comes in at one point five zero one
Trillion dollars and it even has its own official and minor languages
So it's kind of like is it the government is its own country sort of thing?
Some people identify it as that now just side scooting over the Ben Alexis system
If you look at Belgium and Luxembourg
they're generally thrown together all the time as a matter of fact here on the channel when I look at trading I like to use
The OAC because it gives generally pretty good statistics of trading back and forth between two countries
The thing is Belgium and Luxembourg are already thrown together into one big nation and with that the exports of this country in
2016 were
325 billion dollars the biggest of these are cars at six point nine percent. You've got diamonds at five point eight
And of course refined petroleum at five point six percent and packaged medicaments at five point three percent
Good all defined petroleum and packaged medicaments
They're in every single export for every single country pretty much on the flip side though when you look at their imports
they import a lot more than they export for example their imports sit at
381 billion and enough cars which come in at 8.1% and of course you get those packets medicaments again at
5.9. And of course 4.0 is refined petroleum and 4.1% is diamonds
Also one big thing that would change
It actually wouldn't in it would be religion because religion they're both big on Roman Catholic
So it's you know, it's kind of the thing. I'm not much of a religious person
I mean you might be watching this video
But that's kind of a good thing. Is that
They're big religions are the same so there wouldn't be any about like hey, you should have these churches now
You should have these ones. You know that sort of thing
However, let's move our long and let's look at military because I mean they're quite different and with that
Let's just mention the fact that when it comes to the rules and regulations of these militaries well
first of all
Both countries all their military people are all classified as volunteers and to date there is no form of conscription
That is currently happening in either country
however with that Belgium has a total personnel of thirty eight thousand eight hundred people and Luxembourg has a total population of approximately
one thousand troops combined obviously
This only comes in at thirty-nine thousand eight hundred individuals sidenote when it comes to these countries
Both of them are alike quite a bit on other nations that are within the EU for defense both rely on
Germany quite a lot. Of course, you've got Luxembourg that goes hey Belgium
Can you back us up quite a bit?
But however one difference is that Belgium does have a very active military that is broken off into many different departments
And just trying to combine these two nations together when it comes to military Belgium pretty much offers the most amount of gear
basically for their aircraft they would have a total of
167 with approximately 45 fighters you'd also have 50 transports on top that you also have 108
helicopters
however
35 of these helicopters are considered attack helicopter craft
Combat tanks is a very interesting thing. There wouldn't be much of a change here
Even if they joined because both of them do not have any treaded tanks
I believe Belgium might have some in storage, but currently in active duty. They do not use them like many other countries within Europe
they've gotten rid of a lot of treaded vehicles simply because there's a lot more urban combat that's going on so that you
We old ones instead. And with that being said there are wheeled infantry fighting vehicles come in at quite a bit at
662
Lots
Self-propelled artillery of course comes in a zero artillery itself comes in at zero
And of course, I do not have any rocket projectors Navy assets though
This is also an interesting one because they got a really small amount putting Tim together
This country would have a total of 17 Navy assets zero aircraft carriers
only two frigates
approximately zero destroyers and Corvettes zero submarines and two patrol craft on top of that this country would have
Six mine warfare vehicles and as for budget if these two were to join forces combined
They would have a military budget for this nation of five point seven nine
Approximately plus billion dollars
also if these two countries joined
I'm not sure how much of that percentage of military would stay
one thing that you could look at and say is currently right now for both countries the
amount of GDP that is spent on the budget for the military is well below the
Recommended two percent that is for all of European countries
However, most countries in Europe do not get to the 2 percent. So it's not really a big deal
So there you have it guys that is a numerical statistics sort of look at what would happen if these two?
Nations decided to come together
Again, I didn't really want to get into the cultural aspect of things because to be perfectly honest
They already share quite a bit of culture together, but however
If you know something that would change let me know down there in the comments section below
And by the way before you guys get out of here
if you guys are liking these videos and you're from Belgium or you're from lots of Berg and you want to learn more about your
Own individual countries well in this video I've put some cards up that you could check out the playlists that are around these two particular
Nations also put it in the description box below and I'll put it in the end of this video
So you guys can check it out. They're really cool playlists. I really do like them
So anybody from Belgium generally wants to learn from their own countries
So I put it in a nice playlist so you can see all of our Belgium themed videos and vice versa for Luxembourg
But anyways guys, I'm out of here. My name's Dave waffle. Thanks for hanging out with me, and I will see you guys later
All right, so here's those playlists that I was telling you about feel free to check them out
But thanks for watching hit that subscribe button, by the way, if you guys like learning about what we do
Generally, we do a lot of like top 10 videos and things like that about countries and people and all that sort of stuff
So feel free to join us. We'll see you later. Bye