Belgium–Luxembourg relations Belgium–Luxembourg relations Belgium–Luxembourg relations are the bilateral relations between the Kingdom of Belgium and Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Both countries have a history of close cooperation, notably within the Belgium–Luxembourg Economic Union, Benelux and within the European Union. Belgium has an embassy in Luxembourg and Luxembourg has an embassy in Brussels. The Belgian ambassador to Luxembourg is Thomas Antoine. The Luxembourg ambassador to Belgium is Jean-Jacques Welfring. Belgium and Luxembourg share a land border. On the Belgian side of the border, nearly all of it is with the province of Luxembourg; a small part in the north is with the
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,