“Only the misfortune of exile can provide the in-depth understanding and overview into the realities of the world”
Stefan Zweig –Austrian writer and playwright
During the chaos of World War II, there were so many “governments in exile” in London that the area became known as “miniature Europe.” Charles de Gaulle for example left Paris for London after the German occupation, claiming his to be “the only legitimate government of France.”
He named his government in exile Free France— claiming it to be the only bone fide French authority. Likewise, Norwegian King Haakon VII moved his family to London’s Kingston House hoping to restore Norway’s sovereignty after the German occupation. Czechoslovakia, Poland, Greece, Yugoslavia, and others also sent what they considered authentic representatives to London.
These governments in exile hoped to: organize resistance movements, coordinate Allied activities against the Axis powers and generally keep the recognition of their independent sovereignty alive to the international community. When the Belgian ,the Netherlands and Luxembourge governments moved to London in exile however, what emerged was a harbinger of what makes Brussels what it is today on the world’s stage. Allow me to explain…
In May of 1940 when Nazi forces occupied Belgium, the government of Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot fled to London. He asserted, like de Gaulle, that he was the only legal representative of Belgium. Similarly, that same year the Dutch government along with Queen Wilhelmina and her family, fled to London’s Stratton House and formed their version of a government in exile. That same month the government of Luxembourge led by Pierre Dupong , the royal family and Grand Dutchess Charlotte, —after first fleeing to France, then Lisbon,– finally settled in London.
Representatives from these three countries, perhaps by design, housed their governments in exile near one another in the Soho section of London. There they would meet to plan their missions.
Those objectives included: discussions of refugee issues (Belgian refugees numbered 15,000), resistance efforts, the possibility of creating armies of exiles to continue the fight back home, continued colonial administrative duties ( e.g.: the Congo for Belgium and Dutch in Southeast Asia) radio broadcasts (think: BBC and Radio Belgique)) back to their homeland and generally lay the foundation for post-war Europe. But perhaps the most impactful treatise was an agreement signed in September of 1944. Collectively the three “governments in exile” formulated an agreement which has become known as the Benelux Economic Union.
The purpose of this cooperation was “economic integration” or a customs union to ensure free movement of persons, capital, and services between the three neighbors. Additionally, the Benelux agreement pledged to pursue a coordinated policy in other economic, financial, and social spheres—-most immediately how to allocate and distribute the Marshall Plan aid and the European Recovery Programme—an initiative to provide aid in the rebuilding of post-WWII Western Europe.
Benelux intended to become a union within a union where the “three partners could speak with one voice.” By 1952, the three Benelux countries added France, West Germany, and Italy to form the European Coal and Stell Community (ELSC)— a free trade area for the key military and economic resources of coal, coke, steel, and iron.
By 1957 the Europe Economic Community (EEC) joined with these institutions to further economic and social integration. The final tour-de-force was announced in 1992 with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. There it was announced a “new stage of European economic integration resolved to continue the process of creating and even closer union between the peoples of Europe”… what we now call the European Union.
The exiled governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourge in establishing the Benelux Treaty, provided the dynamic impetus for enhanced European cooperation. The Benelux Union has successfully provided a testing ground for future European cooperation. Their efforts foreshadowed the model for today’s European Union and all those ancillary institutions that call Brussels their headquarters.
Did You Know?
Winston Churchill was so mesmerized by Queen Wilhelmina’s dedication to her country, that he described her as “the only man in the Dutch government.”
The Belgian government in exile was able to successfully move much of Belgium’s gold reserves into London during hostilities. Equally as important, the government in exile was able to control the exports (e.g.; rubber, gold, silver, and especially uranium),from the Belgian Congo. This put untold assets into Belgian coffers making post-war rebuilding efforts less problematical.
To be sure the Benelux Treaty was not the first to advocate for European economic union. As early as the 1920’s, British economist John Maynard Keynes envisioned a Free Trade Union to avoid protectionist tariffs on member of a European union. Consider too that Winston Churchill ( 1946) famously called for a “United States of Europe that would make war unthinkable and materially impossible.”
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