The Null Device
Redrawing the map of Europe
The Economist
rationalises the "outdated and illogical" map of Europe:
Belgium’s incomprehensible Flemish-French language squabbles (which have just brought down a government) are redolent of central Europe at its worst, especially the nonsenses Slovakia thinks up for its Hungarian-speaking ethnic minority. So Belgium should swap places with the Czech Republic. The stolid, well-organised Czechs would get on splendidly with their new Dutch neighbours, and vice versa.
Germany can stay where it is, as can France. But Austria could shift westwards into Switzerland’s place, making room for Slovenia and Croatia to move north-west too.* They could join northern Italy in a new regional alliance (ideally it would run by a Doge, from Venice). The rest of Italy, from Rome downwards, would separate and join with Sicily to form a new country, officially called the Kingdom of Two Sicilies (but nicknamed Bordello). It could form a currency union with Greece, but nobody else.
There are 1 comments on "Redrawing the map of Europe":
That's a fun idea. I'm picturing (in my head - I'm too lazy to sketch it) a map of Australia, redrawn to similar principles. Carlton and Fitzroy would move across the Yarra to join Toorak, while West End, Newfarm, Darlinghurst and Newtown would migrate south to the wintery environs of Brunswick, forming the new super-suburb of 'Hipster' (or, borrowing the fashionable term I oppose on several grounds, 'White People'). The Latrobe and Hunter valleys, and central Queensland, would be towed on massive trucks to north Western Australia, where Australia's entire GDP could be created without us having to notice that half the world's global warming is originated there. Victoria's and South Australia's agricultural regions might as well go to the Central Desert. Our twenty remaining factories can be given to overseas countries, allowing Australians to get on with our art and dish-washing careers.