Does Being Smaller Make a Country More European?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

At 2,586 square kilometres, it is the smallest but one of the 28 European Union states. You could drive its length (88 kilometres) or its width (56 kilometers miles) in no time.

The capital, with the same name, has barely 100,000 souls.

The country is the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Small as it is, this grand duchy is a founding member of the European Union and NATO and hosts the European Court of Justice, the Secretariat of the European Parliament and other supranational institutions. Luxembourg expects to be listened to and taken seriously by its European peers. 

With roots stretching back to the 10th century, Luxembourg’s history is closely intertwined with that of its more powerful neighbours, especially Germany. Many of its 600,000 inhabitants are trilingual in French, German and Luxembourgish.

The state’s roots go back to 963 AD, when Siegfried, count of the Ardennes, acquired Lucilinburhuc, an old Roman fort with a Frankish name.

Over the next few centuries, it would grow to encompass an area four times the size of the present grand duchy. It even managed to produce three Holy Roman emperors and several kings of Bohemia. But it would eventually suffer three partitions, resulting in the small nation of today.

The three countries surrounding present-day Luxembourg all own territory that once belonged to Luxembourg, and they all at one point or another demanded its total annexation into their own territory.

In 1659, by the Treaty of the Pyrenees, France gained 1,060 square kilometres, 10 per cent of Luxembourg’s size at the time. Luxembourg later became part of Napoleon’s European empire.

At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, after his defeat, Luxembourg re-emerged, but smaller again. This time it was Prussia that gained territory -- 2,280 square kilometres, 24 more per cent of the grand duchy.

But the worst loss occurred in 1839, when the Netherlands accepted the Treaty of London, formally recognising Belgian independence. As a result, the country lost its western, French-speaking half to Belgium, which still has a province also called Luxembourg.

The territory ceded to Belgium was 4,730 square kilometres, or 65 per cent of the territory of the grand duchy at the time. The population of this territory was 175,000, then half of Luxembourg’s total.

Together, the three partitions reduced the territory of Luxembourg from 10,700 square kilometres to the present-day area of 2,586.

Even after all that, King William III of the Netherlands remained the head of state, as the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, maintaining a personal union between the two countries until 1890.

And of course the country didn’t avoid the horrors of 20th century Europe, either: in the first half of the 20th century, Germany brutally occupied Luxembourg twice, with Hitler annexing it outright the second time.

Luxembourg was liberated in September 1944, and became a founding member of the United Nations a year later.

Yet Luxembourg, instead of harboring irredentist designs to recover its lost territories, has become a poster child for the pan-European model we call the European Union. It was one of the six founding members in 1951 of what would become the EU.

With an advanced economy and one of the world'’ highest GDPs per capita, it is part of a greater economic region alongside the Walloon part of Belgium (including its German-speaking area), the French region of Lorraine, and the German states of Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate.

A global financial centre, the country is a major banking hub. ArcelorMittal SA, headquartered in Luxembourg City, is the world’s largest steel producer.

Many radio and television services for pan-European audiences, including those in France, Germany and Great Britain, are headquartered Luxembourg. Generations of British listeners grew up with Radio Luxembourg, which beamed pop music programs into the country.

Xavier Bettel formed a government in December 2013 after elections held in October at which his Democratic Party, the Socialists and Greens emerged with a small majority over the largest overall group, the conservative Christian Social Party.

The vote was called after Jean-Claude Juncker of the Christian Social Party, who had been prime minister since 1995, lost his majority in parliament when the Socialists quit his coalition over a phone-tapping scandal. The Christian Social Party had been in government since 1979.

Bettel, the mayor of Luxembourg City between 2011 and 2013, is the country’s first openly gay prime minister.