Municipal elections: Belgian political system too complex and problematic, study concludes

Belgium has not only six governments - five regional and one federal - throughout Brussels, Wallonia, Flanders and its small German-speaking region, but also a staggering 31,806 politicians and employees sustaining its offices and cabinets.

That is a key message of a study on Belgian politics carried out by Jean Hindriks, economics professor at UCLouvain university and Alexandre Lamfalussy, researcher for LIDAM (Leuven Institute of Data Analysis and Monitoring).

“These figures illustrate the weight, complexity and dysfunction of our political institutions, from the federal level to the local level of cities, municipalities and provinces, including the regional and community levels,” the researchers noted, adding that “this multiplication of power levels and political structures entails significant costs and chronic inaction”.

Indeed, the country’s 54 ministers and secretaries of state, supported by some 2,000 members of ministerial cabinets, “represent a real annual cost of more than €300 million, far more than the official budgets,” the researchers said in a study also highlighting the wide disparities in government between Flanders and Wallonia.

For example, there are 272 cabinets in Flanders against 986 for Wallonia, Brussels and the French-speaking community. The cabinet of outgoing Brussels minister-president Rudi Vervoort contains the most staff of all – some 80 full-time posts.

Belgium’s political landscape is very different to other European countries, such as the Netherlands with 20 ministers and nine state secretaries and Denmark’s with 23 ministers. The relatively small country with less than 12 million people also has a very large number of members of parliament – some 592, one of the highest parliamentary densities in Europe.

“A comparison with other similar-sized countries, such as Switzerland, shows that there are too many MPs in Belgium,” said Hindriks and Lamfalussy, who are also members of the Itinera think tank.

The research further showed that in Europe, only Luxembourg has more MPs than Brussels, with 92 MPs per million inhabitants, compared to 72 MPs per million in the Brussels region.

This political labyrinth is not only expensive to manage, but the researchers also emphasised how the accumulation of mandates in Belgium makes governing more difficult: “Some MPs have up to 20 mandates, and a majority of federal MPs combine their mandate with a local one. Conflicts of interest are common.”

And these MPs come on top of Belgium’s governors, 42 provincial deputies, 398 provincial councillors, 581 mayors, 2,508 councillors, 13,302 municipal councillors, 9,580 administrators and 2,739 social services councillors.

“All this to manage an area of 30,000m² with a population of 11.7 million,” the researchers noted. “One politician per square kilometre, that is a record.”

Federal complexity

In 1970, Belgium changed from being a unitary state to a federal system, composed of three communities (Flemish, French-speaking and German-speaking) and three regions (Wallonia, Flanders and Brussels-Capital).

“The centrifugal force of Belgian federalism fragmented power, making Belgian governance a real administrative and political headache,” the researchers argued.

Flanders merged the community and regional institutions quickly, but in Francophone Belgium, the split remains. With only one government in Flanders against three in Wallonia-Brussels (Walloon, Brussels and the Federation Wallonia Brussels), Flanders has one minister for 740,000 inhabitants, but a Francophone minister is only responsible for 230,000 people.

This means that while Belgium’s Flemish community numbers nine ministers for 6.8 million inhabitants, French-speaking residents in Wallonia and Brussels have 21 ministers for 4.8 million inhabitants.

“There are twice as many MPs per population in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (FWB) and Wallonia than in Flanders, and four times as many in Brussels than in the Flemish region,” the researchers added.

Moreover, competencies are not organised coherently and this leads to a “dilution of responsibilities”, they say: “On the French-speaking side, unlike in Flanders, compulsory education, higher education and skills training are spread across three different ministries in two different governments.”

In addition, the study points out that Wallonia’s regional government and the intercommunales (responsible for telecommunications or the distribution of water, gas or electricity for example) has around three times more staff than Flanders.

Ultimately, Belgium’s political web with seven parliaments, six governments and five levels of power is not only often ineffective, but also very hard to understand, the researchers say.

They conclude that Belgium should change to a simplified system with fewer staff, as “the fragmentation of powers and dilution of responsibilities in a complex institutional web often leaves Belgians bewildered… and hardly leads to effective policies”.

Photo: Virginie Lefour/Belga