The forgotten Walloon “island”

 

In Flanders there is one little isolated part of Wallonia namely Comines-Warneton. During the excursion Comines-Warneton was never mentioned and also in the excursion guide Comines-Warneton is remarkably absent (figure) because most figures are about Flanders. Our field trip is about border crossing in the Westhoek. During our field trip only the border with France was mentioned but in the Westhoek there is another important border namely the border with Wallonia. More specifically, I am referring to Comines-Warneton which is fully surrounded by Flanders and France. Looking at Belgium it can be said that Comines-Warneton can be seen as an island in Flanders. I think this deserves some more attention. During a small talk with an interviewee before the interview at the village square of Comines-Warneton we talked a little bit about this piece of Wallonia. It makes sense that this village is part of Wallonia because for example most people speak French but it also comes with some bottlenecks. One interesting example is that it is really hard to organise mobility in this village because it is isolated from the rest of Wallonia and mobility is a  regional competence. Therefore, there were for example no biking lanes. Another interesting discussion is about the Operational program 'Wallonia (Hainaut)' from the European Regional Development Fund. Comines-Warneton also made use of this fund because it is part of Hainaut. This made Flanders jealous because it could give Comines-Warneton a competitive advantage in comparison to the surrounding Flemish regions. There are a lot of other topics that can be talked about regarding this border. So we don't even need to cross the national border to get an interesting discussion about border crossing, also the border of Flanders with Wallonia is interesting to look into and should not be forgotten.

by Fien Beirinckx