🇪🇺🇧🇪 FROM EUROPE’S RICHEST TO A STATE LOSING CONTROL - HOW BELGIUM BLEW IT: DEBT, CRIME, AND A GOVERNMENT IN PARALYSIS

Belgium was once one of Europe’s most prosperous and stable countries, standing alongside the Netherlands as a model of wealth and governance.

Thirty years later, it is drowning in debt, paralysed politically, and openly warned by its own judges that it is sliding toward a narco-state.

Public debt is heading beyond 120% of GDP, deficits are entrenched, and governments collapse before any serious reform can be enforced.

This is not a sudden crisis, but the result of decades of institutional decay, endless bureaucracy, and a political system incapable of decisive action.

As the state weakens, organised crime has moved in, exploiting fractured policing, porous ports, and a justice system under strain.

Antwerp, one of Europe’s most important ports, has become a key entry point for cocaine and large-scale money laundering networks.

Judges now warn that criminal structures are no longer marginal, but embedded within public institutions themselves.

Corruption, intimidation, and violence are no longer anomalies, but recurring features in parts of the country.

Meanwhile, Belgium’s complex and bloated governance model drains public finances while delivering less security, less order, and less accountability.

A rich country surrounded by stable neighbours is failing not because it lacks resources, but because it lacks authority and cohesion.

Belgium’s trajectory is a warning to Europe of what happens when debt piles up, governance fragments, and the state retreats.

This is not just economic decline, it is the slow erosion of sovereignty from within.

Source: elEconomista