Leopold wanted Hitler to issue a public statement about Belgium's future independence.

Belgium's public debt is about 99 % of GDP.

Belgacom Group is Belgium's national public Telecommunications company.

In Europe, for example Belgium's Royal Military Academy, military science remains an academic discipline, and is studied alongside Social Sciences, including such subjects as Humanitarian law.

Pirenne's history remains crucial to the understanding of Belgium's past, but his notion of a continuity of Belgian civilization forming the basis of political unity has lost favor.

However the higher-education rate in the country still remains the lowest in the European Union, this rate was around 7 % in 2003 ( Source: OECD ( 2003 ) Education at a Glance and OECD Statistical Compendium ), and improved to 11 % in 2007-as compared to Slovakia's and Slovenia's around 16 %; Germany's, Estonia, Spain's and Ireland's 28 %; or Belgium's, Netherland's, Denmark's, Finland's, Cyprus's and UK's, over 30 % ( Source: EuroStat, March 2007 ).

However, thanks to Belgium's high personal savings rate, the Belgian Government financed the deficit from mainly domestic savings, minimizing the deleterious effects on the overall economy.

Not only was his Belgian nationality interesting because of Belgium's occupation by Germany ( which provided a valid explanation of why such a skilled detective would be out of work and available to solve mysteries at an English country house ), but also at the time of Christie's writing, it was considered patriotic to express sympathy with the Belgians, since the invasion of their country had constituted Britain's casus belli for entering World War I, and British wartime propaganda emphasized the " Rape of Belgium ".

Some older constitutions ( for example, Australia's 1900 text, and Belgium's 1830 text ) do not mention the office of Prime minister at all, the office becoming a de facto reality without formal constitutional status.

Against anyone's expectations Doe Maar played eight shows in 2008 with Joost as the fifth man ; four club dates ( June ), a three-night residency at Rotterdam's Feijenoord Stadium ( July 11, 12, 13 ), and a performance at Belgium's brand new Werchter Boutique-festival.

Belgium's highest point, the Signal de Botrange is located in this region at only.

Belgium's highest point is the Signal de Botrange at 694 metres above the sea level.

* Price Bridge ( Passerelle George Price ) spanning Belgium's Canal du Centre near Mons-commemorates George Lawrence Price, who died at its predecessor in the last minutes of World War I

The winning entry at the 31st annual contest ( held in Bergen, Norway ) is titled " J ' aime la vie ", and is Belgium's only winning entry to date.

Postwar, Continental bodies gained popularity, at least in Britain, as Belgium's D ' Ieteren Fréres became most associated with the company: their landaulette, on a chassis, was priced in Britain at ₤ 900, between Napier and Rolls-Royce.

Only a week after Liège's fall, Ludendorff, then engaged in the assault on Belgium's second great fortress at Namur, was urgently requested by the Kaiser to serve as Chief of Staff of the Eighth Army on the Eastern Front.

Looking east at Belgium's business district

All of the equipment was seized and a copy of the film is currently stored at Belgium's Cinémathèque Royale ..

Belgium's southernmost point is situated in the municipality, at Torgny.

In May 2008 it was an announced that Springa and a new lineup of SS Decontrol would be appearing at Belgium's IEPERFEST in August of that year.

His later books include The Mirror at Midnight: A South African Journey ( 1990 ; new edition, 2007 ), The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin ( 1994 ; new edition, 2003 ), Finding the Trapdoor: Essays, Portraits, Travels ( 1997 ), which collects his personal essays and reportage, and King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa ( 1998 ; new edition, 2006 ), a history of the conquest and colonization of the Congo by Belgium's King Léopold II.

Belgium's next best placing has been second which it has achieved twice at the 1978 and 2003 contests.

Pfaff was dropped from Belgium's 1982 World Cup side after allegedly pretending to drown in the swimming pool at the team hotel.

Clark, who had been playing to her French speaking fans in small venues in Quebec when " Downtown " entered the US charts, swiftly cut non-English versions of the song for the markets in France, Italy and Germany ; the absence in each region's language of a two-syllable equivalent of " downtown " necessitated a radical lyric recasting for the versions aimed at France (" Dans le temps "), Italy (" Ciao Ciao ", winning the Festivalbar, a juke-box contest ) and Spain (" Chao Chao ") which respectively charted at # 6, # 2 and-for three weeks-# 1: " Dans le temps " also reaching # 18 on Belgium's French-language chart.

On 4 December 1999 van Dam was one of the performers at the marriage of Belgium's Crown Prince Philippe and Mathilde d ' Udekem d ' Acoz.

Then followed by appearances at Germany's Hurricane and Southside Festivals in June, Switzerland's Gurten Festival, Pinkpop in The Netherlands, Belgium's Rock Werchter, Portuguese festival Optimus Alive!

They also played their first show outside of Germany, at Belgium's Eurorock Festival.

A total of 4. 99 million people make up Belgium's labor force.

Against this grim backdrop, in 1982, Prime Minister Martens ' center-right coalition government formulated an economic recovery program to promote export-led growth by enhancing the competitiveness of Belgium's export industries through an 8. 5 % devaluation.

About 80 % of Belgium's trade is with fellow EU member states.

Belgium's unemployment rate was 6. 5 % in 2008.

The tourist industry generates 2. 8 % of Belgium's Gross Domestic Product and employs 3. 3 % of the working population ( 142, 000 people ).< ref >

Roman Catholicism has traditionally been Belgium's majority religion with approximately 75 % of the Belgians declaring themselves to be Catholics.

It was owned jointly by the Société Générale de Belgique, Belgium's largest holding company ( which controlled 70 % of the Congolese economy ) and Tanganyika Concessions Ltd.

With 240, 191 inhabitants in the beginning of 2009, Ghent is Belgium's second largest municipality by number of inhabitants.

On April 23, 2009, the European Court of Justice ruled against Belgium and struck down Belgium's anti-bundling law.

Previously, he was Belgium's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2004 to 2009 and then European Commissioner for Development & Humanitarian Aid from 2009 to 2010.

Vercauteren was from 9 April 2009 to 10 September 2009 the Caretaker Manager of Belgium national football team, stepping down after Belgium's defeat in Armenia on 9 September 2009, he was replaced by Dick Advocaat.

Belgium's major photo agencies are Isopix and Photo News.

Brussels Airport is Belgium's biggest airport.

Albert II of Belgium | Albert II, King of the Belgians inspecting Belgian Armed Forces | troops on Belgium's national day in 2011.

Ringwood Brewery founder, Peter Austin, is thought to be an influence on Britain's craft brewery rebirth in much the same way that Fritz Maytag of San Francisco's Anchor Brewing Company and Pierre Celis of Belgium's Hoegaarden Brewery were to their countries.

At the Berlin Conference of 1885, the fact that Kigoma had been established and supplied from Zanzibar and Bagamoyo led to the inclusion of East Africa into the territory of the Conventional Basin of the Congo, to Belgium's advantage.

** The first revenue flight for Belgium's SABENA Airlines takes place.

* May 23 – Belgium's SABENA Airlines is created.

In recent years, an unofficial short version of the anthem is sung during Belgian National Day on July 21 yearly, combining the words of the anthem in all three of Belgium's official languages, similar to the bilingual version of O Canada.

Congolese territory was more than 80 times as large as Belgium's.

In 1996, Belgium's political and criminal justice systems were shaken when Marc Dutroux was arrested and charged with several counts of murder and kidnapping.

In December 1999, the Belgian Federal Government announced that it would again pursue an active foreign policy, particularly in Central Africa where among others Belgium's former colony, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is situated.

The phase-out law calls for each of Belgium's seven reactors to close after 40 years of operation with no new reactors built subsequently.

For his military service, he received 18 decorations, medals and awards, including the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster, Bronze Star with Valor device, Purple Heart, World War II Victory Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, Belgium's Order of the Crown and France's Croix de Guerre.

In 1993, Belgium's Parliament voted a " law of universal jurisdiction " ( sometimes referred to as " Belgium's genocide law "), allowing it to judge people accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

Belgium's neutrality was guaranteed by Britain under the 1839 Treaty of London ; the invasion gave the British the excuse to enter the war, although in reality their aim was to limit German naval expansion.

Following the Battle of the Yser in October, the Belgian forces controlled a 35 km length of Belgium's Flanders territory along the coast, with their front following the Yser river and the Yperlee canal, from Nieuwpoort to Boesinghe.

Having been outbid by Belgium's flag carrier Sabena for the Libyan oil industry support flight contract that year, Silver City's losses became unsustainable.

Leopold I ( Leopold Georges Chrétien Frederic ; ; Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, later Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony ; 16 December 1790 – 10 December 1865 ) was from 21 July 1831 the first King of the Belgians, following Belgium's independence from the Netherlands.

Skirmishes continued for eight years, but in 1839, the two countries signed the Treaty of London establishing Belgium's independence.

That same year Leopold began to urge Belgium's acquisition of colonies.

Despite its status as Belgium's national stadium, Heysel Stadium was in a poor state of repair by the time of the 1985 European Final.