Belgium

Belgium is characterized by its complex federal and linguistic environment. There is a deep cultural cleavage between its two main federal communities - the Flemish and the Francophone. Belgium also features a third, smaller federal community of German-speakers within the Liege province. This unique political composition has frequently rendered the necessary coalition negotiations difficult - as evident by the country being left without an elected government for 589 days between 2010-2011. It has also led to the pillarization of the state into largely asymmetric party systems. The latter are notably highly fragmented in their own right – particularly along church-state and socio-economic fault lines. As a result, Belgium features a high number of parties – leading some to describe the country as a particracy. Yet, following perceptions of a widening gap between politicians and citizens in such discordant representative relations, citizens have become increasingly active in politics, as illustrated by the gradual expansion of citizen assemblies, and the vitality of recent anti-racist, climate change, and Covid-19 protests. Other key issue-areas for the population have been employment rates below the EU average, pensions, regional inequality, migration, and the Flemish separatist movement. Additionally, while the country’s colonial legacy has remained comparatively muted in domestic discourse, there has recently been a growing movement seeking to confront the past, particularly regarding narratives of the mass violence conducted in the Congo Free State, as well as remnants of colonial triumphalism in street names, statutes, and sites of memory. These efforts have resulted in a sizable return of Congolese artefacts, and the formation of a parliamentary commission tasked with issuing concrete recommendations on how to best address the country’s colonial legacy.

Despite Belgium’s comparative stability, three developments may deserve monitoring. The first relates to Gender Equality – herein, the 200 measures embedded into the National Acton Plan Against Gender Violence may come to offset a recently declining trend, particularly as gender-based violence has for several decades been rather invisible within domestic policies. The second is connected to Effective Parliament, wherein corruption scandals have come to gradually erode perceptions of whether the legislature carries out the necessary investigations of officials. A final area relates to Civil Liberties. As Belgium is set for a seventh state reform in its never-quite-settled federalization process, following successive efforts that began in 1970, it is likely that this will have some impact on the sub-attribute (and beyond) in the medium-term. While the precise contours of the 2024 state reform is not yet known, one of six key thematic areas for citizen consultations on the reform was focused upon fundamental rights, including in relation to their scope and whether new constitutional rights should be introduced. Thus, it is likely that there may be some constitutional changes with direct impact on Civil Liberties in the medium term.