Benelux
The Benelux Union, AKA Benelux, is a politico-economic union and formal international intergovernmental cooperation of western European neighbors: Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. They're all pretty small countries, but together, the PPP GDP (yeah, I don't know what that means either) of Benelux is a loud $1.580 trillion, and $48,359 per capita. Anyways, "Benelux" is now used more generally to refer to the geographic, economic, and cultural grouping of the three countries. Also, "Benelux" is a super-cool name, so there.
A Mostly Boring General Overview[edit | edit source]
The Benelux is an economically megadynamic and hella populated region, although this population is a mere 5.6% of the European population (29.2 million residents, a mere 8.897% of teh USA's population) and also a mere 7.9% of the joint EU GDP (€36,000/resident, or USD $43589.16/resident) on no more than a mere 1.7% of the total surface of the EU. (that percentage took me forever to calculate btw)
Some examples of results of the Benelux cooperation include automatic level recognition of all diplomas and degrees within the Benelux, a new Benelux Treaty on police cooperation, common road inspections, and a Benelux pilot with digital consignment notes.
The main institutions of the Union are the Committee of Ministers, the Council of the Union, the General Secretariat, the Interparliamentary Consultative Council and the Benelux Court of Justice while the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property cover the same territory but are not part of the Benelux Union.
The Benelux General Secretariat, the permanent administrative office, is in Brussels. It is the central platform of the Benelux Union cooperation. It handles the secretariat of the Committee of Ministers, the Council of Benelux Union and the various committees and working parties. The General Secretariat provides day-to-day support for the Benelux cooperation on the substantive, procedural, diplomatic and logistical levels. The Secretary-General is Alain de Muyser from Luxembourg and there are two deputies: Deputy Secretary-General Frank Weekers from the Netherlands and Deputy Secretary-General Rudolf Huygelen from Belgium.
The presidency of the Benelux is held in turn by the three countries for a period of one year. Belgium holds the presidency for 2021.
Polyticks[edit | edit source]
The Benelux Parliament was created in 1955. This Parliament is madeup of 21 members of the Dutch parliament, 21 members of the Belgian national and regional parliaments, and 7 members of the Luxembourgish parliament which is probably kind of unfair because Luxembourg only has a third of the reps that Belgium or Holland has. Anyways, on Jan. 20, 2015, the three governments, including the regional and community governments, signed the Treaty of the Benelux Interparliamentary Assembly over in Brussels. This treaty took effect on 1 August 2019. Also, the current official name has been largely obsolete in daily practice for a number of years: both internally in the Benelux and in external references, the name Benelux Parliament has been used de facto for a number of years now.
In 1944, exiled (exiled? how did that happen?) representatives of the three countries signed the London Customs Convention, the treaty that established the Benelux Customs Union. This was ratified in '47, and was in effect from '48 up until whenever it was replaced by the Benelux Economic Union. This treaty, establishing the Economic Union, got signed on February 3, 1958 in The Hague, and took effect on November 1, 1960. The Benelux Economic Union treaty promotes the free movement of workers, capital, services, and goods in the Benelux. Under this treaty, the Union implies the co-operation of economic, financial, and social policies.
Cooperation with other geopolitical regions[edit | edit source]
In 2017 the members of the Benelux, the Baltic Assembly, three members of the Nordic Council (Sweden, Denmark and Finland), and all the other countries EU member states, sought to increase cooperation in the Digital Single Market, as well as discussing social matters, the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union, the European migrant crisis and defense cooperation. Relations with Russia, Turkey and the UK were also on the agenda. Since 2008, the Benelux Union has worked with the German Land (state) North Rhine-Westphalia. In 2018, the Benelux Union signed a declaration with France to strengthen cross-border cooperation.