Belgium 1 year without goverment

[Varys 30,916]

For the past year Belgium has had no permanent government, and the kingdom's citizens don't seem to mind. 

Despite months of talks, party bigwigs appear unable to untangle the Gordian Knot. 

How can you form a coalition to rule a Dutch-speaking north that votes solidly conservative and a left-leaning French-speaking south? 

In some countries this might be a national crisis, but Belgians seem hardly bothered, used to living in a land that is ungovernable, but where citizens somehow just get on with life.

"Nothing unusual". "We are used to it". "We see no difference," passers-by told AFP reporters in central Brussels, not far from the seat of the Belgian federal state, rudderless since December 2018.

"It's 'Belgitude'," smiled Odile, a costume designer, using a term that captures Belgians' infinite capacity to shrug off the absurdities of their complex country.

"With or without a government, there is social peace," shrugged Reda, a Belgian-Moroccan job-seeker.

https://www.france24.com/en/20191210-no-government-no-problem-say-belgians

[Varys 30,916]

Also mind you we hold the world record for most days without a goverment. 541 days. Am going to throw a party if we set a new record

[Andreu 37,216]

love how they are unbothered but tbh when we have been almost a year without government in spain either everything has been the same way as well so I shouldn'tsay i am surprised

[hausofcy 20,545]

The fact that we're Belgium is barely visible on the map yet we have one of, if not the most complex structure as a country. Who needs like 6 governments? Like it's so complex that half of the population probably doesn't even understand the way things work. Ofcourse everyone remains unbothered, myself included. 

[DonatellaPop 3,482]

24 minutes ago, Andreu said:

love how they are unbothered but tbh when we have been almost a year without government in spain either everything has been the same way as well so I shouldn'tsay i am surprised

Omg, do you live in Spain aswell? 

[Economy 52,844]

That happened where I lived before for like a few days

 

I can't remember if it was the Federal Government, Provincial or if it was my Municipal government but I remember one of my levels of government was suspended for a short time over something too

 

But it didn't really change anything tho. The established laws still applied

[River 127,368]

In the meantime in Israel we're reaching the 3rd elections in 1 year

Politics is a mess worldwide.. we need young politicians to run our countries and not the old boomer clowns.

[Varys 30,916]

Just now, River said:

In the meantime in Israel we're reaching the 3rd elections in 1 year

Politics is a mess worldwide.. we need young politicians to run our countries and not the old boomer clowns.

Our politicians are relativly young tho. Actually our older ones were the more pragmatic ones. The new generation is really stuburn and ego driven

[River 127,368]

5 minutes ago, Varys said:

Our politicians are relativly young tho. Actually our older ones were the more pragmatic ones. The new generation is really stuburn and ego driven

Yeah I agree, it's something that goes against them all the time, they can't agree for the compromise and it's very important in politics.

[Varys 30,916]

Just now, River said:

Yeah I agree, it's something that goes against them all the time, they can agree for the compromise and it's very important in politics.

Like we have 13 parties in parliament and the biggest party only has 24/150 seats and they are all way to stuburn to compromise and feel personally attacked etc...

[River 127,368]

1 minute ago, Varys said:

Like we have 13 parties in parliament and the biggest party only has 24/150 seats and they are all way to stuburn to compromise and feel personally attacked etc...

This is crazy

It's too much, there should be a limit or something, it's 13 ideas.. it's like even inside the left and right wings there are so many different opinions that they can't sit with each other..

 

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

It’s because Belgium does not exist anymore: It’s an EU territory.

[Varys 30,916]

12 minutes ago, River said:

This is crazy

It's too much, there should be a limit or something, it's 13 ideas.. it's like even inside the left and right wings there are so many different opinions that they can't sit with each other..

 

2 minutes ago, Lord Temptation said:

It’s because Belgium does not exist anymore: It’s an EU territory.

From all the western countries we might have the most complex political structure.

You should know that we have 3 official languages. Dutch spoken in the norh in Flanders (Flanders is the richest part of Belgium (like nordic european countries)  were 60% of our 11 million population lives). Then you have French spoken in Wallonia (a more poor region like Southern Europe type) (were 35% lives) But in wallonia you also have a German comminity of 30.000 speakers which is also an official language. Finnaly we have the Brussels capital region of 1,5 million people were both French and Dutch are official languages but also lots people speak english because of the EU headquarters and Nato Headquarters. 

Each of these language groups have a seperate goverment which has equal power as the federal goverment. (So a Dutch,French and German goverment) But it doesn't end there. Wallonia Brussels And Flanders also have seperate goverments with equal power. Because Flanders and the Dutch region are the same its one gov but wallonia and french speaking are 2 different goverments. So we have 6 goverments in total (Federal, French, Wallonia, Brussels, German and Flemish/Dutch) + a king. Wallonia and Brussels voted (socialist/green communist) and Flanders voted (Conservative/Seperatist/Liberal/Green). A large minority of Flanders (around 20%) wants to seperate from Belgium since we broke of from the netherlands  in 1830 (some want to rejoin the netherlands btw) .  First until after WW2 it was because the French speaking persons and Elites saw the Dutch speaking majority has peasants and discriminated against them .  Then after WW2 Flanders became the economic powerhouse of Belgium and Wallonia became depented on it.  So now the 2 sides have to come together but because when you live in Flanders you only can vote for Flemish parties and also in Wallonia only for Walloon parties so they only look out for their own regions intrest. And to make things works in the parties themself their are major conflicts and splits. in my opinion they should refederalise everything and let us be able to vote for the other language parties or just split the country for good. Just not this mess with 6 goverments for only 11 million people).  That would be diffucelt because of Brussels its an exclave in flanders but they speak largely French (also the EU and Nato institutions are their and we wouldn't want them to leave since they create lots of jobs and wealth of our population. They sometimes say that the only things holding Belgium together are our king, Brussels and our soccer team

 

[Emakku 494]

Well Bosnia still doesn't have a state-level government 14 months after the elections. Our record is 16 months without a government after the elections.

And people here don't mind, it's like we have the standards of Switzerland or Norway. The Parliament of Bosnia didn't have one session during this year because it is boycotted by the Serbs from the Republic of Srpska and there's no quorum without them but they are receiving their monthly salaries of about €2000+.

Which is a bit high considering the minimal pension is 90€ (yup, you've read it right) in Republic of Srpska and the minimal wage is 225€ in the Federation (minimal pensions in the Federation are 150€). 

The official average monthly salary here is 450€ but considering 100,000 people (out of 1.5 million workers) are working for the government and state institutions (and they have the biggest salaries and benefits) the real number is much smaller. Just take into account that Bosnia has 3 presidents + 2 on a lower lever and in total 136 ministers and 14 parliaments.

 Sorry for taking the spotlight from Belgium but you don't have it that bad.

Plus all the ruling parties here are right-wing nationalist. We have an islamophobic president who represents the Serbs and he denies the existence of Bosnia  as a country and wants it to be split in two. (Muslims make up 50% of the population)

[xoxo Craig 55,649]

Just now, Varys said:

From all the western countries we might have the most complex political structure.

You should know that we have 3 official languages. Dutch spoken in the norh in Flanders (Flanders is the richest part of Belgium (like nordic european countries)  were 60% of our 11 million population lives). Then you have French spoken in Wallonia (a more poor region like Southern Europe type) (were 35% lives) But in wallonia you also have a German comminity of 30.000 speakers which is also an official language. Finnaly we have the Brussels capital region of 1,5 million people were both French and Dutch are official languages but also lots people speak english because of the EU headquarters and Nato Headquarters. 

Each of these language groups have a seperate goverment which has equal power as the federal goverment. (So a Dutch,French and German goverment) But it doesn't end there. Wallonia Brussels And Flanders also have seperate goverments with equal power. Because Flanders and the Dutch region are the same its one gov but wallonia and french speaking are 2 different goverments. So we have 6 goverments in total (Federal, French, Wallonia, Brussels, German and Flemish/Dutch) + a king. Wallonia and Brussels voted (socialist/green communist) and Flanders voted (Conservative/Seperatist/Liberal/Green). A large minority of Flanders (around 20%) wants to seperate from Belgium since we broke of from the netherlands  in 1830 (some want to rejoin the netherlands btw) .  First until after WW2 it was because the French speaking persons and Elites saw the Dutch speaking majority has peasants and discriminated against them .  Then after WW2 Flanders became the economic powerhouse of Belgium and Wallonia became depented on it.  So now the 2 sides have to come together but because when you live in Flanders you only can vote for Flemish parties and also in Wallonia only for Walloon parties so they only look out for their own regions intrest. And to make things works in the parties themself their are major conflicts and splits. in my opinion they should refederalise everything and let us be able to vote for the other language parties or just split the country for good. Just not this mess with 6 goverments for only 11 million people).  That would be diffucelt because of Brussels its an exclave in flanders but they speak largely French (also the EU and Nato institutions are their and we wouldn't want them to leave since they create lots of jobs and wealth of our population. They sometimes say that the only things holding Belgium together are our king, Brussels and our soccer team

 

I reading about this... and because there are so many people from different backgrounds then it is difficult to all agree and command a majority government    Its so complex