The Merits of Keeping Cool While Hearing the Siren Calls

Abstract

The institutional transformation that the linguistically divided state of Belgium has gone through in the past few decades has perhaps been soundless. However, this has not made its consequences any less fundamental (Von Busekist, 1998; Leton, & Miroir, 1999; Delwit, De Waele, & Magnette, 1999). Various, but mostly language-related, matters have pushed the formerly unitary state of Belgium into a series of constitutional reforms that have divided up the country into several largely independent parts. Place-tied administrative matters have been devolved to the regions of Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia, whereas person-related matters appear on the tables of the Dutch-speaking, French-speaking and German-speaking communities. As a result of this division of competencies, the territories of federal entities are overlapping. The territory of the French-speaking community includes the territories of the Walloon and Brussels region. The territories of the Flemish and Brussels regions are within the realm of the Dutch speaking community. The German speaking community covers a few districts in the east of Wallonia. In Brussels, individuals are free to decide if their interests are taken care of by the French or the Flemish community or if they vote for the French or the Flemish electoral college. To complicate matters even further, the political and administrative institutions of the Dutch speaking community and the Flemish region have been integrated into one. As a result, there is only one Flemish parliament (in Brussels). The set of tasks that have remained with the federal government is fairly small in comparison with nearly all its neighbouring states, especially France, the Netherlands and Britain, but also to its federal neighbour Germany. Foreign policy officially is still a national competency, but the Flemish region has recently opened its own diplomatic offices in The Hague and Paris, something German states are not very likely to do. Furthermore, the Belgian regions and communities have ‘treaty-making capacity’ with respect to the issues for which they are exclusively responsible. This means that they can sign treaties without interference of the Belgian state. For example, German states always have to acquire approval of the federal state. When fulfilling their occasional duty as half-yearly presidents of the European Council and the representation in the council of ministers, Flemish and French-speaking representatives regularly alternate roles to the disbelief of a great many other European leaders. Finally, the federal role in the levying and redistribution of income taxes, almost a hallmark of the existence of a national state, is not undisputed, especially in Flanders. Politicians and civil servants in various policy domains are growing less and less familiar with the contents and developments of policies in the other regions and discover, sometimes to their own surprise, that the different entities are drifting further and further apart. They occasionally regret that each of them is going their separate ways, but the new realities are hard to ignore. Legislation painfully brokered between political parties at the national level have led to empowered authorities at the regional level.