Review article

Flanders Heading Towards Its Own State Reform

Koenraad de Ceuninck orcid.org/0000-0001-5402-7784 ; Centre for Local Politics – CLP, Department of Political Sciences, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium
Herwig Reynaert ; Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium

Abstract

Belgian constitution states that ‘Belgium is a federal state, composed of communities and regions’. This is the result of five state reforms (1970, 1980, 1988– 1989, 1993 and 2001). The political power of the country is divided among different partners: communities, regions and the federal state. The position of the nation-state has weakened as authority has been transferred downwards, to the regional level, and upwards, to the European Union. The five successive state
reforms of the past have not yet resulted in a final satisfactory state architecture – the debates about the future form of the country are at the core of the political agenda in Belgium. The Flemish and the French-speaking communities have different opinions about how to organize the country. The history of state reform process has been analyzed briefly in the first part of this paper. The process of
state reform also had consequences for the local authorities. Since 2001, the regions (Flanders and the Walloon Region) have been responsible for the organisation of local and provincial government. This resulted in a new framework for both of the local governments, in Flanders and in the Walloon Region. In Flanders, the discussion about the (re)organisation of the local level has continued
until today. The relation between the local and the regional level is a point particular of interest. The new Flemish government that came into power in 2009 announced that it would carry out an ‘internal Flemish state reform’. Thereby the government considered a shift of competences between the different government levels, a reform of the municipal finances and the promotion of voluntary mergers between municipalities. Those initiatives are analysed and placed into
a broader perspective. The analysis takes into account the questions of what the Flemish government is aiming at and why.

Keywords

Flemish state reform; local, provincial and regional self-government – Belgium; Belgian federalism; the Brussels-Capital Region; Flanders; the Walloon Region; amalgamations and mergers of local units; linguistic divide

Hrčak ID:

131854

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/131854

Publication date:

1.12.2011.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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