This self-criticism leads often to distorted pictures of the country abroad. Since Belgium is not sufficiently important for most foreign media to send journalists there on a long term basis, and since the Belgian reality is anyway very complex and counter-intuitive for people living in different types of culture, the media tend to rely on reports by Belgians for their news about the country. Since these "self-reports" tend to focus on everything that goes wrong, from which the media, as they always do, select the most spectacular aspects, the image you get of Belgium in foreign newspapers is often one of a country on the brink of social and economic collapse. This image is held up in particular by those who dislike the process of European integration, and who see Belgium, home of the European "government" (the Commission), as an exemplar of everything that is wrong with the European Union.
This image is completely off the mark, though. Belgium is not only one of the richest countries in the world, but as shown by statistics from the World Bank, averaged over a 10 year period (1985-95) its economy has been growing faster than any of the other rich countries, with the exception of those in East Asia. While the Asian economies have collapsed in the meantime, the Belgian economy continues to grow at a healthy rate. Also the different political and social problems are easily put into perspective: whatever the disagreements on the political level, there has not been any violence in the streets. No one has died because of political conflicts. Even the few large protest demonstrations that Belgium has known (e.g. against nuclear missiles, or for reform of the justice system) were remarkably dignified and peaceful. There have been no large, national strikes for the past 20 years or so, and the Belgian political system is quite stable, with only small changes now and then in the ruling coalition.
The only "danger" for the foreseeable future is that the two language communities would grow further apart, becoming largely autonomous, so that the Belgian state would only remain as a minor administrative level between the regional level and the European Union level. The probability that Flanders and Wallonia would separate completely (like in the "velvet divorce" between Czechia and Slovakia), making Belgium disappear, is quite small, though. The reason is that none of the two communities is prepared to give up Brussels, which because of its multilingual status cannot be cut up into a Flemish and Walloon part.
The Belgian's lack of pride also leads to the lack of a clear image for the country abroad. Other comparable small countries have easily recognizable images: for example, Switzerland is immediately associated with banking, clocks and mountains, Holland with tulips, cheese and wind-mills. For Belgium, on the other hand, no clear associations spring to mind. This is due partly to the lack of image-building and marketing, partly to the fact that the Belgian culture and landscape is extremely varied, and cannot be summarized in a few symbols.