Belgium–Netherlands 2018 FIFA World Cup bid Belgium–Netherlands 2018 FIFA World Cup bid Alain Courtois, a Belgian Member of Parliament, announced in October 2006 that a formal bid would be made on behalf of the three Benelux countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg to host either the 2018 FIFA World Cup or 2022 version, but has since decided to concentrate solely on the 2018 version (see 2018 European World Cup bids). In June 2007 the three countries launched their campaign not as a joint bid in the manner of the Korea-Japan World Cup in 2002, but emphasizing it as a common political organization. Luxembourg would not host
Habsburg Netherlands on. In 1581, the Seven United Provinces seceded to form the Dutch Republic; the remaining Spanish Southern Netherlands eventually passed on to Habsburg Austria. Finally, the Austrian Netherlands were annexed by the French First Republic in 1795, becoming the French client state of the Batavian Republic. The Habsburg Netherlands was a geo-political entity covering the whole of the Low Countries (i.e. the present-day Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and French Nord-Pas-de-Calais) from 1482 to 1581. Already under the rule of the Burgundian duke Philip the Good (1419–1467), the provinces of the Netherlands began to grow together: Flanders, Artois and Mechelen, Namur, Holland,