In Belgium, the sockets are CEE7 style with the protruding earth pin in the socket outlet, as used also in France. The trouble is that the borders of Belgium abut also Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, where they all use sockets that have the earth clasps at the top and bottom.
There is no co-ordination for the multi-way adapters. There is no availability of adapters that work either way except for multi-way extension leads bought in Luxembourg or Germany: these do work well and I have several of them. They have nice chunky cable, and they carry 16A at 230V without even getting warm and provide good earth connections.
I often see non-extension-lead ones where someone has "Francocised" a German or Luxembourgoise model using a heated tent peg or a slow drill to pop a hole through the plastic body where the earth pin ought to go, but of course these don't then provide any earth protection, so that's a worry.
Equally worrying are the French adapters that have been "Germanated" to fit a regular Shucko clasp-earth style socket by the wholesale chopping out of lumps of insulation from the plug bit of the adapter, because they also have no earth, and they lose a lot of the benefit of the recessed Shucko design as regards moisture protection, not to mention structural strength.
All else being equal though at least my iBook, for example, which has a europlug-type 2-pin connector has managed to plug in safely in every European country I've tried* without using any adapters at all, except for the UK.
Of the Australian thing. twisting pins on plugs like that sets a bad example, because some appliances won't appreciate the voltage and frequency differences in supply, no? I know that a lot of (especially consumer electronic) kit that uses switched-mode supplies is nice and tolerant, but a lot of it isn't, especially not ones that are a bit older!
* Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Luxembourg, Finland, Ukraine, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Austria, but I believe the 2-pin Europlug is used far more widely.
