Farmer Accidentally Changes The Border Between Belgium And France

Updated September 8, 2021

In all likelihood, most of your experiences with borders have been fairly tense affairs as serious border guards ask you questions and possibly search your belongings.

Those questions are pretty simple but they don't always feel that way when you're put on the spot and feel like a wrong answer can have serious consequences.

But while that's the gist of how it goes stateside, there are parts of Europe where you can easily cross a border without realizing it. Not only does EU membership make those borders easier to cross, but the actual division points can often be found in normal-looking streets and fields with no gates to speak of.

So while it sounds insane that one person could possibly redraw a nation's borders by accident, it's a very real possibility in the regions I just described.

If you visit Belgium, you'll not only notice how many nations it shares borders with, but how those borders tend to be marked.

Reddit | juliantje15

Although they aren't usually buried in as much sand as this one, Belgium's boundaries with France and the Netherlands are marked with stone pillars that tend to bear the country's initial and the year it was erected.

As the BBC reported, one of those stones was placed in 1819 and marks the border that would be finalized a year later in the Treaty of Kortrijk. This treaty was brokered after Napoleon's famous final defeat in the battle of Waterloo five years earlier.

But while we now understand the history and significance behind that stone, one farmer in Belgium merely considered it a nuisance.

Reddit | jumbo04

According to The Guardian, a local amateur historian happened to be walking in some woods near the village of Erquelinnes and noticed the stone had been moved about 7.5 feet deeper into France than it should have been.

Apparently, a farmer who owns the nearby land found that the stone got in the way of his tractor and moved it, thus making Belgium a little larger than it's supposed to be.

Fortunately, officials from both nations have taken the mistake in stride thus far, which means it hasn't risen to the level of an international incident.

As The Guardian reported, Erquelinnes Mayor David Lavaux clarified that neither his town nor Belgium in general are in any way looking to expand their territory.

With that out of the way, he joked, "I was happy, my town was bigger. But the mayor of Bousignies-sur-Roc didn’t agree."

For her part, the neighboring French town's mayor Aurélie Welonek said, "We should be able to avoid a new border war."

However, that good will seems to depend entirely on the farmer's willingness to put the stone back where it belongs.

Reddit | hei-sen-berg

As Lavaux said, "If he shows good will, he won't have a problem, we will settle this issue amicably."

However, the BBC reported that if the farmer refuses to comply, he could face criminal charges and the case will be referred to the Belgian Foreign Ministry. This will force them to put together a Franco-Belgian border commission, which hasn't happened since 1930.

And to think the farmer thought that stone was in his way before.

h/t: BBC, The Guardian

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