Belgium for Beginners, part 2
Okay, what more can I write about the funny little country I live in? The one thing that never ceases to amaze foreigners when I tell them about it, is how Belgium is organized politically.
Basically, we are a federal state, with a constitutional monarchy. Sounds straightforward enough, no? But it gets complicated: Belgium has had a long history of language-related problems between French speakers and Dutch speakers. This resulted in the creation of ‘regions’ and ‘communities’. A ‘region’ is a territorial entity with it’s own institutions, and is responsible for ‘territorial’ matters (roads, infrastructure, agriculture...). A ‘community’ is a linguistic entity, and is responsible for ‘personal’ matters (education, culture...).
So, if you are counting, that makes for three regions and three communities. Three regions? Indeed: Brussels, the capital, is territorially an enclave of Dutch-speaking Flanders. But since the majority of the population in Brussels speaks French, a Belgian solution was found, and they made the city and nineteen surrounding communities into a full-fledged region (with a government, parliament, the whole shebang, on top of the twenty mayors and city councils). And there are three communities: don’t forget the tiny German-speaking minority!
For example, a French speaker in Brussels drives on roads built and maintained by the Brussels region and goes to schools maintained by the French community. But the Flemish speaker next door goes to Flemish community/region schools (using the same roads). And they both pay federal taxes (part of which is then given to the communities/regions).
So, for a population of ten million, that makes seven governments and parliaments. Don’t forget: there is also the Federal level, just like in the U.S. But seven is too much, even for Belgian standards. That is why the Flemish community and region were fused into one entity. This left Belgium with only six governments and parliaments to cope with its legislative needs.
To address the looming shortage of enough laws and legislation, a bid was made to make Brussels the capital of the European Union. And lucky us! It worked! Now we’ll never have to fear a red tape shortage ever again!
Join us in the exiting next episode of Belgium for Beginners, where I explain the many and multicoloured political parties thriving in these unique institutions...
