The drive by Catalans to form an independent country, separate from Spain has given fresh impetus to Flemish separatists who want to be independent from Belgium.
About a dozen members of the Flemish nationalist party New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), including the speaker of the Flemish Parliament, Jan Peumans, joined the huge demonstration on the streets of Brussels as the Catalans took their plight for self-determination to the heart of the European Union.
MEP Mark Demesmaeker Federal parliamentarian Peter Luyckx, and Jan Van Esbroeck, member of the Flemish Parliament, said in a communique: “Today we are all Catalans.
“We are joining in their peaceful protest against Europe’s silence and Spanish repression.”
Mr Luyckx said: ”The way the European institutions and Madrid are managing the crisis runs counter to the democratic values we ought to share in the European Union.
“We hope this message will today reach the Berlaymont, where the European Commission sits. Europe must make dialogue possible between Catalonia and Spain.”
Mr Luyckx added: “It’s unacceptable that political prisoners are still imprisoned in 2017. Where is the indignation?”
N-VA delegation member Kathleen Krekels said: “For us, it’s good to see that so many Catalans are united in demanding their independence.
“We do not yet bring together as many people, but we are also trying, through our legislative work in Parliament.”
Belgium police estimated around 45,000 people marched through the streets of Brussels yesterday in a show of support for their independence cause as well as their frustration over the EU not heeding their calls to intervene in the dispute.
The EU has greeted the Catalan independence movement’s cries for help with either deafening silence or solid statements of support for the Madrid government. Some protestors held posters of Jean-Claude Juncker, the commission president, with the word “shame” emblazoned above him.
Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, the Spanish deputy prime minister, said the only reason the protesters were able to march in Brussels was because they were citizens of Spain, which was part of the EU.
She told a press conference: “They are exercising a European right derived from the fact that Spain forms part of the European Union, of precisely that European Union which they are criticising,” adding that Catalan politicians didn’t hesitate to “throw stones” at Europe when it did not back them.
She said: ”Having a Spanish ID card and belonging to the European Union is what has enabled them to go there and protest.”
Additional reporting by Maria Ortega