Should Flanders join the Netherlands?

[Tchek]

True. The Protestant Liégeois did move northward though. While there was no real religious persecution in the Prince-Bishopric, they took the sure for the unsure. They wouldn't fit in anyway, so gone they went.

Personally I believe this discussion of irredentism a little redundant today. The climate doesn't allow for it for the necessity isn't there.

So rests me to troll. Good to see a Flemish girl. You don't see many females coming from our parts, yet countless of men have been here.

The so-called "walloon provinces" loyal to Spain are almost all located in France now (Arras, Douai, Lille, Cambrai...), only little bits of Hainaut were part of it.
The religious persecutions in Liège in the 16th century were very mild compared to elsewhere (like Flanders and Hainaut)... because there was few protestants, and the local version of Catholicism was very "liberal", persecutions for heresy were rare; Smith guilds were very powerful and traded with the Dutch Republic a lot even during the "inquisition". They would have fitted in IMO (there are a few protestant churches), because commerce was already more important than faith back then in Liège; which has always been yet a very Catholic city (one of the highest number of churches per km²).

[sioned]

Guess what...

The aristocratic Sucre family can trace its roots back to origins in Flanders. It arrived in Venezuela through Charles de Sucre y Pardo, a Flemish nobleman, son of Charles Adrian de Sucre, Marquess of Preu and Buenaventura Carolina Isabel Garrido y Pardo, a Spanish noblewoman. Charles de Sucre y Pardo served a soldier in Catalonia in 1698 and was later named Governor of Cartagena de Indias and Captain General of Cuba. On December 22, 1779, Charles Sucre y Pardo arrived in Cumaná, Venezuela having been named Governor of New Andalucia, present day Sucre state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Jos%C3%A9_de_Sucre

[alfieb]

Belgium is a failed state. Flemish people are Dutch. If Flanders does not wish to be its own country, then the people of Flanders would be better served reuniting with Holland within the Netherlands as they were until the early-mid 1800s.

[Tchek]

Guess what...

The aristocratic Sucre family can trace its roots back to origins in Flanders. It arrived in Venezuela through Charles de Sucre y Pardo, a Flemish nobleman, son of Charles Adrian de Sucre, Marquess of Preu and Buenaventura Carolina Isabel Garrido y Pardo, a Spanish noblewoman. Charles de Sucre y Pardo served a soldier in Catalonia in 1698 and was later named Governor of Cartagena de Indias and Captain General of Cuba. On December 22, 1779, Charles Sucre y Pardo arrived in Cumaná, Venezuela having been named Governor of New Andalucia, present day Sucre state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Jos%C3%A9_de_Sucre

What was considered "Flemish" was different back then. The family was most likely northern French, some says Alsatian Jew.