Huge if true!
Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border
11–20 of 287 posts
Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah it really shows how peace and nations working together can make stuff like that a non-issue. Everyone is so relaxed about it.
Or more cynically, things only go smoothly when there's nothing at stake.
It's the other way around. The thing that's at stake is economic cooperation, so both sides are more willing to find an amicable solution than otherwise.
Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border
#13A neighbor once moved the pegs marking our block a few meters so that he could move (and claim) the neutral strip. The most irritating thing, is that he more or less got away with it because he was old and persistent. In fact, he gradually built infrastructure on it, despite hundreds of complaints to the local council and authorities. In the end the council couldn't come up with a good way to settle the dispute, so t…
> In the end the council couldn't come up with a good way to settle the dispute, so they offered to auction the neutral strip and its contents between us to the highest bidder.
Here in Germany, he would be issued a demolition order by the court that, in case of non-compliance, will be enforced even with armed police if deemed necessary. On top of that the affected party can sue him for damages.
Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border
#14This is so ironic. There is already a movie (Rien a Declarer / Nothing to declare) whose main premise is a guy spending his nights slightly moving the border between France and Belgium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6MljTh0kws (This extract is French only unfortunately :( )
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piQPaxlZWu4 (With English subtitles)
But, as someone who grew up less than 100 meters from this border, I'm pretty sure this stuff actually happens all over.
Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border
#15A neighbor once moved the pegs marking our block a few meters so that he could move (and claim) the neutral strip. The most irritating thing, is that he more or less got away with it because he was old and persistent. In fact, he gradually built infrastructure on it, despite hundreds of complaints to the local council and authorities. In the end the council couldn't come up with a good way to settle the dispute, so t…
> In the end the council couldn't come up with a good way to settle the dispute, so they offered to auction the neutral strip and its contents between us to the highest bidder. Here in Germany, he would be issued a demolition order by the court that, in case of non-compliance, will be enforced even with armed police if deemed necessary. On top of that the affected party can sue him for damages.
They don't really enforce it much in Romania, but when they do, same. I've seen stuff get bulldozed down.
Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border
#16A neighbor once moved the pegs marking our block a few meters so that he could move (and claim) the neutral strip. The most irritating thing, is that he more or less got away with it because he was old and persistent. In fact, he gradually built infrastructure on it, despite hundreds of complaints to the local council and authorities. In the end the council couldn't come up with a good way to settle the dispute, so t…
> In the end the council couldn't come up with a good way to settle the dispute, so they offered to auction the neutral strip and its contents between us to the highest bidder. Here in Germany, he would be issued a demolition order by the court that, in case of non-compliance, will be enforced even with armed police if deemed necessary. On top of that the affected party can sue him for damages.
Unfortunately people usually know how the enforcement happens in their countries and happily take advantage of the disfunctional authorities.
Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border
#17A neighbor once moved the pegs marking our block a few meters so that he could move (and claim) the neutral strip. The most irritating thing, is that he more or less got away with it because he was old and persistent. In fact, he gradually built infrastructure on it, despite hundreds of complaints to the local council and authorities. In the end the council couldn't come up with a good way to settle the dispute, so t…
My father's uncle kept moving the fence between our property and his so he could drive to the back of his own property. This was an ongoing thing. I think eventually my father just gave up and let him have the strip. Now neither property is in the hands of family and no one will know unless a survey is done in the future.
Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border
#18This made me wonder...are (most) of the (undisputed) borders of the world actually stored somewhere? Or are some stones and posts still the "official" borders?
They're stored in law. Treaties define borders in (seemingly) unambiguous terms. Meridians, river beds and so. Problems arise when river beds move and everything becomes extremely ambiguous. In the worst case scenario you've got borders defined by older borders of poorly documented feudal holdings and it's up in the wind where the actual border ought to be. So states have to negotiate to redefine them in modern terms.
Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border
#19This made me wonder...are (most) of the (undisputed) borders of the world actually stored somewhere? Or are some stones and posts still the "official" borders?
Here in Portugal we (and Spain) have landmarks that define the border, and there's a treaty signed in 1846 that states these landmarks should be maintained in cooperation between the two countries. You can see some examples here, with the numbers and type of landmarks (apparently there are 1010 stone marks, other types of marks are wet marks for example, like rivers and lakes): https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_de_…
Although we don't officially agree what those actual borders are everywhere:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivenza#Claims_of_sovereignty
Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or more cynically, things only go smoothly when there's nothing at stake.
It's the other way around. The thing that's at stake is economic cooperation, so both sides are more willing to find an amicable solution than otherwise.
World peace will happen when everyone in the world [1] will be convinced that every other human out there is worth more to them alive, unharmed and happy.
[1] Or at least an overwhelming majority of people.