Cinema of Belgium
Cinema of Belgium refers to the film industry based in Belgium. Belgium is essentially a bi-lingual country divided into the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) north and the French-speaking south. There is also a small community of German speakers in the border region with Germany. Belgium is further a federal country made up of three regions (the Flemish Region, the Walloon Region and the Brussels-Capital Region) and three language communities (the Flemish Community (Dutch-speaking), the French (i.e., French-speaking) Community and the German-speaking Community).
Due to these linguistic and political divisions it is difficult to speak of a national, unified Cinema of Belgium. It would be more appropriate to talk about Flemish or Dutch-language cinema of Belgium and Walloon or French-language cinema of Belgium.
Partition of Belgium
Four theoretical scenarios are usually considered in the event that a partition of Belgium would occur: remaining with Wallonia, sovereign statehood, reattachment to Germany, or attachment to Luxembourg. The community is part of the Walloon province of Liège and, per se, would stay so in case of partition. This status quo solution is the most probable, although it is uncertain whether or not the German-speakers could maintain their cultural and political rights in the long term in an otherwise monolingual francophone country. The other three possibilities would become realistic only if Wallonia were to seek unification with France. Since the community used to be part of Germany, "reunification" seems to be the logical step to take (the region borders the German states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate). However, opponents to this idea argue that the autonomy of the region would be lost in Germany as much as it would in France. Therefore, and because of the strong cohesion of the regional population, some would prefer the creation of an independent state. They argue that the new country would, for example, be five times as large and more than twice as populous as Liechtenstein. Opponents say this would lead to the creation of a new undesired tax haven. The last option would be to merge with Luxembourg. Supporters of this scenario underline that many from St. Vith currently commute to Luxembourg and that a union with the rich Grand Duchy would be economically profitable. However this would leave the northern part of the community around Eupen as an exclave of Luxembourg. Minister-president Karl-Heinz Lambertz has been said to have supported such a project. He, however, has refuted this and has committed himself to the continued union with Belgium. In an interview with the German TV-channel ZDF in February 2011, he listed the four aforementioned options concerning the future of the German-speaking Community.