Monetary integrationhas long played a central but complicated part in Belgian politics. Exchange rates and their stability are important: the country depends on transformation of intermediate goods, and its industry exports approximately two-fifths of its output to neighboring countries (France, Germany, and the Netherlands). Belgium thus had a high stake in the first wave of EMU – to have failed would have meant pressures on its currency, inflationary tendencies, high interest rates, and increased unemployment – all with political costs. As a founding member of the European Community (EC), Belgium has been one of the strongest supporters of political integration, with an electorate which is one of the most pro-EU among the member states. Failure to qualify for EMU at its inception would have therefore discredited Belgium's claim to more European (federal) integration. Failure might also have undermined a source of national cohesion, as Europe, and the constraints imposed by monetary integration, have counterbalanced long-standing regional divisions. European monetary integration and its effect on the Belgian labor regime are thus tightly connected with Belgian political integration and national identity.

Belgium is divided into three regions: Dutch-speaking and largely Catholic Flanders, Francophone and largely secular Wallonia, and the bilingual capital region, Brussels. Cultural differences have coincided with changing economic conditions. Wallonia was the more prosperous region in the early postwar period but its old industries have suffered continuing decline.