Belgium

Authored by Drieu Godefridi via The Gatestone Institute,

• Last month alone in Brussels, there were three separate outbreaks of rioting and looting on a major scale.

Update: As we warned earlier, La Sexta has just reported that (former) Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont will seek asylum in Belgium.

According to eldiario.es, Puigdemont has made the decision to travel to Brussels advised by a legal team that recommends him to remain in that country.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

Catalonia’s separatist campaign has dominated European headlines for the past couple of weeks, but it’s really the northern Belgian region of Flanders which will serve as a barometer over whether large chunks of the EU will fall apart into a collection of identity-centric statelets prior to the bloc’s reconstitution into a “federation of regions”.

We start with the overnight observations by Mint's Bill Blain who points out something contradictory: on one hand Europe is said to be "fixed" with inflation expectations rising and the ECB preparing to take its foot off the gas pedal. On the other hand, "European Sovereigns will start issuing long bonds again.... A French 30yr is in the works, Italy and Belgium are both looking, while other rumours say the EFSF might be in the frame. ...

For at least three centuries, citizens of Holsbeek, Belgium have celebrated Christmas by putting a Christmas tree and model of baby Jesus in the town square. But that tradition has come to an end in 2016 for fear of offending the town’s four Muslims. Achiel Claes, a former town alderman for the Christian-Democrats, said: “The reason was that it would be ‘too provocative for Muslims’.