In May 1993, Belgium has formally become a federal state with the fourth revision of its Constitution on the state reform, which started in 1970 in order to solve the persistent conflicts between Dutch and French language groups.
In this article, the six main features of the reform of 1993 will be briefly reviewed, and their significance will be evaluated. The article also examines attitudes of the Belgian citizens on the state reform as well as their identification with the country.
The revision of the Belgian constitution in 1993 includes many important changes in the political institutions in the country.
1) Belgium is now formally referred to as a federal state in the article 1 of the new constitution.
2) The Senate was reformed so as to fit better with the function of the federal state, and it now represents the federal entities in addition to the electorate.
3) Regions now have their own assemblies which are composed of directly elected deputies.
4) The ‘constitutive autonomy’ of the three of the six federal entities has been introduced, thus paving the way for significant means for them to decide by themselves on the operation of their respective government structure.
5) The competences of the federal government will be limited to diplomacy, monetary policy, defence, judiciary, policing, social security, and the repayment of public debt. The residual competences are to be transferred to the federal entities.
6) The province of Brabant, which includes Brussels and covers both Dutch and French language regions, is divided into two povinces.
Two things have to be pointed out. 1) The non-territorial character of the Belgian federalization process since 1970 has now receded substantially, making way for the territorial principle. 2) This revision clearly reflects the weakening centripetal forces on the part of the Belgian state, and their restoration was not attempted in the latest reform.
The 1993 reform of the Belgian state has not succeeded in solving or containing the language conflict in the country. Survey data show that Belgian citizens are largely in favor of the restrengthening of the Belgian state. However, on specific issues, such as the federalization of social security and the voting right of the francophones residing in the Dutch language district in the suburbs of Brussels, opinions of the population in the Dutch-speaking part and French-speaking part show marked differences, thus indicating the difficulty of avoiding further quarrels between the language groups.
The territorial principle which has become dominant with the last reform is likely to cause further problems as well, especially around Brussels and Fourons area where dynamic movement of people are present and/or the two language groups live in the same area, and thus the territorial demarcation according to language groups is difficult to realize.
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