A senior Dutch politician has reportedly suggested dividing up Belgium between France and the Netherlands, effectively eliminating the country. Martin Bosma, president of the Dutch Parliament and member of the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), reportedly proposed the idea during a dinner with the French ambassador to the Netherlands, François Alabrune.

NRC, a leading Dutch newspaper, reported that the 60-year-old politician suggested the Flanders region of Belgium, a largely Dutch-speaking area in the north, should go to the Netherlands, while the French-speaking region of Wallonia in the south could become part of France. He allegedly said: "The Netherlands wants Flanders to join them. Wallonia could go to France. Things that could potentially happen."

Bosma, who is also President of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands, did not deny the claims when responding to Belgian newspaper, La Libre.

It reported he said: "During an evening like that, you talk about politics and things that could potentially happen, yes."

He is part of the controversial PVV party run by Geert Wilders, who has strong anti-immigration policies and proposed legislation in 2018 to ban mosques and the Quran.

Until 1585, Flanders and the Netherlands were united, ending with Antwerp's fall during the Eighty Years' War, but Belgium's current prime minister, Bart De Wever, reaffirmed his desire for Flanders to return to the Netherlands in 2021.

He said on Trends Talk: "In 1993, I was already co-organiser of a Greater Netherlands student conference. I have never abandoned this dream: that all Dutch speakers would one day live together again."

He added: "They would be one of the strongest economies in the world. The ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam could merge to become the gateway to North-West Europe's economy.

"It sounds like a fantastic story. Of course, water will have to cross the Rhine and Scheldt, and people are not yet mentally ready for it.

"Federalism was unthinkable in Belgium in the 1960s; it became reality in the 1970s. Confederalism is hard to imagine in Wallonia today; I think it will be tomorrow's reality. If I could die as a Southern Dutchman, I would die happier than as a Belgian."

The Netherlands is run by a coalition government, with Geert Wilders' far-right PVV as the largest party, as well as the conservative-liberal VVD, the Farmers' Citizen Movement, and the centrist New Social Contract.