sonoftony
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- Apr 3, 2005
I enjoy it here and wouldn't move but I wouldn't place it at the top of EU countries. We have a very complicated political system and the country is essentially divided in 2. The north speaks Dutch, the south speaks French. The problem is that we on the northern side all learn French in school but the southerners aren't taught Dutch in most places. It results in a lot of communication problems as not all of us can be fluent in French. Half of our federal government has to use translators because they can't understand eachother properly without them. It's kind of ridiculous when you think about it.I totally forgot about Holland and I had no idea about Spain's unemployment.
[@=/u/93394/Colombia]@Colombia[/@] How's life in Belgium?
Our economy is doing relatively well, we had a growth of roughly 1,5% the past year and employment is good.
We also have low cost education and healthcare but many other EU countries offer those.
As for racism, I definitely wouldn't recommend Belgium to middle eastern immigrants but other minorities seem to be less affected by racism. There's not really that many different ethnicities here though that aren't middle eastern. We do have a good police system with little police brutality. If it does happen, officers are held accountable. And the police leadership actively trains its officers to deal with racism and different ethnicities.
Crime varies depending on where you go but overall we're doing pretty well on that front. Larger cities have more crime whereas rural areas tend to have very little.
I'd say we're definitely not a bad country to live in but we're clearly outclassed by countries like Sweden and Germany.
Cost of living is good in my eyes but I'm not sure how we compare to other countries. You'll make considerably less than in the US but pay much less in rent, houses, ...
€2500 a month after tax is considered a medium-high wage here for example.
The Netherlands are a bit like us but more liberal. There's also a large problem with racism towards middle eastern people there (look up politician Geert Wilders) there but I believe they have a more multicultural society than us. There's not that many negatives I can think of. Good economy, employment, social security, ... Arguably one of the better EU countries to live in.
Thanks for the insight