Belgium 1830–2030: Politics

Paul-Henri Spaak (1899–1972) was the Belgian socialist and foreign minister who chaired the negotiations for a European common market between 1955 and 1957. The Treaty of Rome is the treaty signed on 25 March 1957 that created the European Economic Community (EEC) and Euratom. Spaak's name heads the list of signatories: a small country turned out to be the ideal architect, precisely because nobody feared it.

The Belgian Revolution of 1830 became a lasting state because its leaders turned street improvisation into rules within months: an elected National Congress and the Constitution of 7 February 1831. The September Days were the street battles of 23–26 September 1830 in which Brussels insurgents and volunteers drove the Dutch army out of the city. One of the men who then gave the revolt a government, the Liège lawyer Charles Rogier, had himself fled on the first morning of the fighting.