Regional and Federal Studies Vol. 15, No.

2, 187 204, June 2005

What if anything can the European Union learn from Belgian federalism and vice versa?
WILFRIED SWENDEN
University of Edinburgh

ABSTRACT This article highlights the similarities and differences between Belgium and the EU as multi-level polities and indicates what they might learn from each other. The comparison focuses on (dis)similarities in the internal structure of the components that form the multilevelled polity, in the processes of central decision-making and in the institutional framework at large. I argue that plural multi-level polities can be more easily sustained if their centre respects the linguistic and territorial integrity of the constituent entities, central decisionmaking rules are majority-constraining and institutional adaptation takes the character of piecemeal reform. Facing growing electoral discontent, leaders in both polities must confront the challenge of maintaining a sufciently strong centre, while at the same time fostering inter-segmental cooperation in order to stimulate the gradual creation of a trans-segmental public sphere. KEY WORDS : Belgium, EU, Federalism, multi-level polities, consociationalism

Belgium, with its three Regions Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels and three Communities Flemish, French and German-speaking is a highly complex, idiosyncratic and relatively young federation. Thus there might appear to be only limited scope for other polities to copy Belgian institutional arrangements. Yet Belgian federalism shares certain features with the EUs multi-level polity. This article seeks to spell out the similarities and differences between Belgium and the European Union as multi-level polities and discusses to what extent they can learn from each other. Belgium and the EU are similar in at least three respects. First, unlike the other federal EU member states of Germany and Austria, Belgium is a multi-national and multi-lingual federation; the European Union is a pluri-national and multi-lingual polity. With the exception of Brussels, Belgium has been transformed into a federation comprising monolingual sub-entities, a feature that almost fully applies to its most
Correspondence Address: Wilfried Swenden, Department of Politics, School of Social and Political Studies, Adam Ferguson Building, George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LL, United Kingdom. Email: w.swenden@ed.ac.uk ISSN 1359-7566 print=1743-9434 online DOI: 10.1080=13597560500115527 # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd

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important components: the Flemish and the Walloon Regions (Van Parijs, 2000). Secondly, Belgian federalism has been identied as a consociational federation (Deschouwer, 1999; 2002). Many consociational features even pre-date the federalization of Belgium. These consociational elements are majority-constraining (Stepan, 1999). Likewise, the structural and procedural features of the European Union are also highly majority-constraining. Thirdly, Belgium is the only federal EU member state (and to my knowledge the only democratic federal state tout court) without representatives from a state-wide party in parliament. Parties are structured along linguistic lines in electoral prole and organization, and in this sense they are even less integrated than the loose transnational European party federations. Despite these points of similarity, I will argue that the dyadic nature of the Belgian federation, exemplied by the presence of a bipolar party system, the central role of party leaders in binding federal and regional politics together, the centrifugal character of its federal model, as well as the method of allocating competences is at odds with the current make-up of the EU. In addition, while Belgium has managed to develop a unique brand of federalism which thus far has been capable of controlling domestic nationalist conict, the Belgian model of federalism has certain drawbacks that weaken its appeal as an institutional example for other multinational polities. The article is structured in three sections. In the rst section I consider the (dis)similarities between Belgium and the EU in the nature of the territorial segments, as well as in prevailing policy styles and policy actors. In the second section, I focus on specic (dis)similarities in the institutional framework of Belgian federalism and European multi-level governance. Processes of constitutional change as well as similarities or differences in the scope, nature and adjudication of competences are discussed. The nal section critically assesses the institutional and democratic acquis of the Belgian and European institutional models and sketches the challenges that both polities must confront if their long-term sustainability is to be secured.

Belgium vs. the European Union: (Dis)similarities in Segmentation, Policy Styles and Policy Actors Multi-level Polities Built Around Linguistically Diversied and Protected Sub-units Belgium transformed itself from a unitary into a federal state in the course of one political generation (Alen and Ergec, 1994). While Belgium had been multi-national in character from its creation in 1831, ethno-linguistic tensions between French and Dutch speakers did not give rise to a demand for devolution until the post-Second World War era. During the entire nineteenth century, and for the rst half of the twentieth century, French was used as the language of politics, business and administration, even if it was spoken only by a majority of those people who lived in Brussels and Wallonia (Witte, Craeybeckx and Meynen, 2000). However, as the franchise was extended, the demographic preponderance of the Dutch-speaking population translated into political weight. As a result, the 1930s saw a number of language laws which made Dutch and French the sole languages of administration in Flanders and Wallonia respectively, and turned Brussels, at least formally speaking, into a bilingual national capital. Thus, while Belgium was not formally a federal state until 1993, the internal restructuring of

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the country towards clearly identiable linguistically homogeneous entities was a process that began in the 1930s and was completed with the formal demarcation of the linguistic borderline in 1962 63. Three important sociological events accelerated this process of linguistic homogenization. First, the 1960s saw the emergence of a class of Flemish politicians who had been educated entirely in Dutch-speaking schools and/or universities and who were thus more vocal in demanding strict observance of the language laws. Secondly, while Wallonia had been the industrial heart of Belgium, the decay of the post-war coal and steel industries shifted the bulk of socio-economic policy-making to Flanders. Unlike Wallonia, Flanders did not have to go through a painful restructuring of its heavy industries. It was more successful in attracting foreign direct investment and in developing medium-sized enterprises or service industries. Both factors considerably strengthened the political resources of the Flemish political classes and lent more weight to their demand for a Dutch-only policy in Flanders. Thirdly, political tensions centred on the ofcial demarcation of the language borders: since Brussels had a bilingual statute whereas Flanders and Wallonia were monolingual, French-speaking citizens living in the (Flemish) suburban municipalities around Brussels took an interest in extending the borders of the capital so as to secure their linguistic survival (Lorwin, 1966). Conversely, leading Flemish political elites did not want to extend bilingualism to the French-speaking minorities who lived in those areas: a policy of bilingualism, they feared, would lead to a process of Frenchication, similar to that which had occurred in Brussels.1 The strength of the Flemish political classes was such that they could push through their territorial view on language politics: reducing the linguistic rights of French-speakers in the suburban municipalities to that of linguistic facilities in schooling (kindergarten and primary education), local judiciary and administration, and conning the borders of bilingual Brussels to the 19 municipalities (Swenden, 2004a). In contrast with Belgium, which has moved towards devolution, the EU represents the coming together of a polity, forging an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe. The EU may weaken the capacity of each of the member states taken separately but it has been careful to safeguard the territorial integrity of its constituent parts and to protect their linguistic diversity in particular. Thus, while English is increasingly making headway as the de facto lingua franca of the EU, in communicating with their citizens, the EU and member state authorities resort to one of several ofcial languages of the member states. Formally imposing a single lingua franca (say English) on all Europeans, similar to the imposition of French on all Belgians in the early decades of Belgian history would be the wrong option. Indeed, Jean Laponce (Laponce, 1987) and Philippe Van Parijs (Van Parijs, 2000) have argued that the opposite device, the territorial protection of languages (or the so-called territoriality principle), underscores why relations between linguistic communities have on the whole been signicantly better in Switzerland than in Belgium, Canada or Spain, let alone in Sri Lanka, East Timor or Kosovo (Van Parijs, 2000: 10). The entrenchment of national languages may slow down the emergence of a European demos that transcends the member states, but alternative policies could lead to stronger resentment in the short term and further weaken the already weak European democratic acquis (Van Parijs, 2000, for a succinct analysis).

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Generalized bilingualism, either on a soft territorial basis (as in Canada) or on a hard personal basis (assuming that each individual possesses perfect knowledge of the European lingua franca alongside one or several national languages), is not likely to generate democratic stability. Soft bilingualism would trigger off a process in which the strongest linguistic language gradually swallowed the weaker one. In contrast, hard bilingualism would create considerable resentment among the group of people who only speak the lingua franca, as they also would have to acquire the local national language in order to gain access to jobs, even though there is little point in learning [the other language] since the others will anyway be learning theirs (Van Parijs, 2000: 8). The alternative of organizing linguistic policy on a Community-basis may not prove valuable either. In Belgium, the Community concept is almost exclusively conned to Brussels, where citizens, unlike in the rest of the country, are free to chose between the French or Dutch linguistic Community. Community-adherence is of the soft type: citizens are free to move, indeed to shop between Communities (seeking, for instance, the best education in Flemish or French Community schools). However, one could also imagine Community-based polities of the hard type: once citizens declare their loyalty to one Community, they are bound to services of that Community for the rest of their days. Soft Community-based polities may not stop the gradual erosion of the linguistically weaker languages by the stronger ones. For instance, recent studies have demonstrated that the Frenchication of Brussels continues despite the fact that the Flemish Community has managed to entice a considerable group of French-speaking pupils to its schools (Janssens, 2001). Hard Community-based polities would fall not much short of apartheid, as citizens would be locked in forever. From the Territorial Organization of Language Politics to the Territorial Segmentation of Parties and Politics In Belgium, the territorial imposition of linguistically homogeneous zones has contributed to the appeasement of the linguistic cleavage. Yet, the transition phase that led to the establishment of such a regime was characterized by occasional political struggle. Initially, these struggles particularly focused on Brussels (a predominantly Frenchspeaking enclave surrounded by Flanders), some of its suburban municipalities (located in Flanders but predominantly French-speaking as well) or a few municipalities that ended up being on the wrong side of the linguistic border. These political tensions gave rise to the emergence of ethno-linguistic parties in the late 1950s and 1960s, most prominently, the Flemish Peoples Union (VU) and the French-speaking Front of Democratic Francophones (FDF). The success of these regionalist parties eroded voter support for the traditional state-wide Belgian parties (Christian Democrats, Liberals and Social Democrats) which were still unitary in character at that time. As a result, the relationships among the Dutch- and French-speaking members of the main parties became increasingly strained, as they proposed divergent strategies to reclaim the electorates they had lost. Ultimately these tensions contributed to the break-up of the traditional parties along linguistic lines, a process that started in 1968 with the Christian Democrats and was completed in 1978 with the split of the Belgian Socialist Party (Deschouwer, 1999; 2002). With the exception of the bilingual electoral district of Brussels-HalleVilvoorde, Dutch- and French-speaking parties no longer compete against each other.

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The break-up of the state-wide parties along linguistic lines has enabled the previously unitary parties to harden their electoral proles on regionalist issues. Indeed, the break-up of the political parties did not mark the end of Belgian consensual policy-making (Huyse, 1986). Rather, consensual decision-making became more visible, as it was no longer primarily intra-party, but rather shifted to the inter-party arenas (coalition-making, decision-making in the national parliament and executive between ideologically related parties drawn from both linguistic groups). Thus, the split of the traditional political parties preceded the devolution of powers to the subnational Regions and Communities. Yet, as far as the traditional party families and even the regionalist parties (VU and FDF) are concerned, a willingness to work with the system prevailed. With the exception of the extreme right-wing Vlaams Blok, which did not become a relevant political force until 1991, all parties mentioned have participated in national coalition governments and lent their support to at least one of the constitutional changes (1970, 1980, 1988 89, 1992 93, 2000 01) which have shifted powers to the Regions and Communities. The absence of any signicant state-wide parties sets Belgian federalism apart from other federations. Although Swiss parties are also loosely structured, the four parties in the Swiss federal executive have a quasi state-wide character. Furthermore, the recurrent use of referendums as well as the relatively independent position of the legislature ` vis-a-vis the executive reduces the centrality of the parties in the Swiss political system (see Church and Dardanelli in this volume). Not so in Belgium: parties have retained their position as the key-actors in consociational decision-making. Since they are organized on a linguistic, and thus, with the exception of the bilingual district of BrusselsHalle-Vilvoorde, also on a quasi-regional basis, parties contain only one president, executive and conference. The same party leaders therefore nd themselves playing political chess at two boards simultaneously: the federal and the regional one. During the entire campaign, their adversaries are almost exclusively conned to parties of the same linguistic family, irrespective of the type (federal or regional) of election. However, in the post-electoral phase, the federal chessboard looks quite different from the regional one. Following regional elections (again with the exception of Brussels which in itself is a miniature reection of the federal chessboard), parties only have to look for a legislative majority within their linguistic group. Following federal elections, parties must mobilize majorities within as well as across their linguistic group. The disconnecting of federal elections from a state-wide campaign or party platform means that parties do not take recourse to the interests of the other linguistic group as long as the campaign goes on, but must do so once the campaign is nished. In theory, one would expect the coalition-formation process, as well as the issues that are discussed during this process, to be very different between federal and regional elections. But, because the parties are split, and thus the same party leaders take centre stage in federal and regional elections, this is not the case. Furthermore, the absence of state-wide media means that the difference between federal and regional election campaigns is blurred. Therefore, a bad regional outcome is likely to affect the stability of the federal government and vice versa. Put differently, federal and regional elections are both rst order. The dyadic nature of the Belgian federal model adds to the strong interdependence of the federal and regional levels in the post-electoral phase.

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The European Union, like Belgium, does not have effective state-wide parties. European electoral campaigns are almost exclusively fought in 25 national electoral settings. As in Belgium, national parties campaigning in European parliamentary elections are not concerned about the interests of the parties campaigning in other EU member states, since they remain essentially discreet for electoral purposes. This is so despite the fact that citizens from other EU member states can appear on national party lists for EP elections, and despite the existence of European electoral manifestos proposed by the major European party federations prior to EP elections. However, unlike the Belgian federal arena, the European arena is not (yet) strongly politicized. The Council, the most important legislative arm of the EU, remains indirectly elected. European parliamentary elections only marginally affect the composition of a European executive: the EP must give its assent to the Commission President and the European Commission as a whole, yet the nominations still come from the Council, a situation that the Constitutional Treaty will only marginally change. National parties do belong to European party federations and MEPs sit as members of transnational party groups in the European Parliament. In this sense, the crossnational party ties are actually more obvious in the European context than the crosscommunity ties in Belgium where, with the exception of MPs representing the Flemish and French-speaking Green parties in the Belgian federal parliament, MPs do not sit in bi-communal parliamentary party groups. However, European elections, unlike Belgian federal or regional elections, are still considered to be of second order; the daily management of European politics requires a much lower level of involvement of European party leaders than the daily management of Belgian federal politics requires from party leaders who are active in the federal arena. Furthermore, national party leaders control the nomination process (and disciplining) of MEPs. In Belgium, because they sit in their respective party executives, leading federal politicians take a lead role in nominating (and thus disciplining) candidates for federal and regional ofce alike: they may reect a more moderate stance on Communitydriven issues than their party colleagues with seats in a regional parliament. Bipolarity and the Logic of Consociationalism vs. Multi-polarity and the Logic of Bounded Majoritarianism From the viewpoint of the two major linguistic communities that constitute the Belgian federation, the bipolarity of the Belgian federation has pros and cons. On the con side, both communities risk being perceived as losers as their interaction may seem structured along the pattern of a zero-sum game. On the pro side, neither community can be easily bypassed, as they have acquired a mutual-veto position in the executive, legislative and even bureaucratic institutions of the federal level as well as that of the Brussels Capital Region. Indeed, the peculiarity of the Belgian federal system lies in the consent of the Flemish demographic majority to the reduction of its status to that of an equal partner at the federal level, in exchange for its recognition as an equal partner in the governance of the Brussels Capital Region, notwithstanding its minority position there. Non-majoritarianism is strongly embedded in the political history of Belgium and was already a feature of Belgian policy-making when the main political fault-line

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was not a linguistic but a religious one (Catholic vs. non-Catholics; see Deschouwer, 1999; 2002; Hooghe, 2004, for an overview). If we accept that the segments now have a territorial rather than an ideological or religious character, the four leading axioms of consociationalism (Grand Coalition, Mutual Veto, Segmental Autonomy and Proportional Representation) can be almost fully applied, at least with regard to the federal and the Brussels policy levels (Lijphart, 1968; 1999; Deschouwer, 2002). The governments of these levels are formed on the basis of all-inclusive Grand Coalitions, in which both linguistic groups have acquired a position of mutual veto. Apart from what they agree to organize in common, the linguistic segments are free in theory to organize policies as they see t (segmental autonomy). Each of the segments can claim a minimum of proportional representation in central decisionmaking as well as a proportional allocation of resources. Important consociational features of the Belgian federation relate to the federal executive, which is composed of an equal number of Dutch- and French-speakers and decides by consensus, and the rule that in Community-sensitive matters, including laws specifying the competences and nancing of the sub-national entities, the federal parliament must decide with an overall two-thirds majority in the federal lower house and the Senate, comprising majorities within each of the linguistic groups in both houses (these laws are known as so-called special majority laws). Paradoxically, of all the consociational features, segmental autonomy is the least fullled in the Belgian context. The devolution of powers has made the Regions and Communities fully autonomous in policy areas such as agriculture, industrial development (Regions), education or culture (Communities). However, for reasons explained above (the bipolarity of the party system and the tendency of party elites to control and coordinate policy-making in a linguistically split party federation), the prescribed federal consociational logic spills over into the sub-national arenas. With the exception of the Brussels Capital Region, which embodies consociationalism in its institutional framework as well, there should be sufcient room for adversarial, i.e. less oversized, government coalitions in the Flemish or Walloon Regions or in the French or Germanspeaking Community governments (Deschouwer, 2002). Prior to the June 2004 regional elections, such regional minimal-winning coalition governments had not materialized (Swenden, 2002). The logic of consociationalism is easier to maintain if the segments are ideologically cohesive. Segmental cohesiveness can be accomplished most easily if regional and federal elections coincide. Given that federal and regional elections are likely to produce comparable results, coalition governments of similar make-up can then be formed with relative ease in the federal arena and in the most important Belgian regional governments: the Flemish and the Walloon. This also enables segmental leaders who are active at the federal or regional arenas to move between the two levels from election to election without much difculty (Fiers, 2001), which further strengthens segmental cohesion. Conversely, the logic of federalism requires the decoupling of federal and regional elections (and even the de-coupling of regional elections in different regions), and the formation of regional governments that are closely tailored to the specic electoral preferences of a region concerned. Furthermore, the distinct nature of the federal and regional arenas prescribes that people who have chosen to pursue a political career at one level should not be able easily to opt for

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a career at the other level (although in parliamentary federations such moves do occasionally occur, for instance if ministers in a regional government are offered the prospect of an executive job in the federal arena). In recent years, scholars have debated the suitability of consociationalism for comprehending the institutional framework of the European Union (Hix, 1998; Lijphart, 1999; Bogaards and Crepaz, 2002; Kaiser, 2002; Costa and Magnette, 2004). Many elements of the European polity are majority-constraining: the frequent (albeit diminishing) recurrence of voting by unanimity in the Council; the comparability of national governments and bureaucracies to ideological or territorial segments in a consociational federation and the role of these segments in co-determining the composition of so-called supra-national decision-making bodies, such as the European Commission, the European Central Bank or the European Court of Justice. Decision-making at the EU level requires super qualied majorities; each of the member states thus far can even block potential Treaty changes. These rules require the formation of highly inclusive coalitions, even more so than is needed in most federal states for changing their constitutions (Swenden, 2004b). Nevertheless, Andre Kaiser makes a claim that these majority-constraining features have more in common with intergovernmentalism than with consociationalism. If we leave aside those decisions that still require unanimity, the coalitions that may be formed under less majorityconstraining decision-rules (such as QMV) are ad-hoc rather than permanent (Kaiser, 2002: 444 5). Thus, not all member state governments participate in a permanent Grand Coalition; this contrasts with the make-up of the Belgian (or Brussels) governments, which must always represent a majority of Dutch- and French-speaking MPs. The relaxation of the Grand Coalition requirement is the logical consequence of operating in a system of 25 member states or to put it in consociational terms segments. Furthermore, the lack of a strongly politicized European centre combined with the fact that the directly elected parliamentarians (MEPs) represent a much larger number of states or segments than is the case in Belgium leads to a lower interdependence between European parliamentary and national elections than between Belgian federal and regional elections.

Belgium vs. the EU: Structural (Dis)similarities Debating Constitutional vs. Treaty Change: Different Actors, Different Rules Because Belgium developed from a classic unitary into a federal state, regional institutions (parliaments and executives) have only been indirectly involved in deciding on their own competences. Even today, the federal parliament alone decides on the assignment of sub-national competences. Only international treaties which affect the domestic competences of the regions require the consent of the affected regional parliaments. Indeed, Belgium was the last EU member state to ratify the Amsterdam Treaty, because (for domestic reasons) the parliament of the Brussels Capital Region (or, more particularly, the group of Flemish MPs in the regional parliament who constitute the Flemish Community Council) postponed its approval. The bicommunal composition of the federal executive as well as the technique of special (double) majorities needed to change many constitutional provisions, including

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the catalogue of sub-national competences, ensures that the interests of Flemish and French communities are taken into account. These features reduce the need for a strong federal second chamber whose representatives articulate regional interests in federal decision-making. An effort in 1995 to reform the Belgian Senate to that purpose failed: Community interests continue to be predominantly taken care of by the leaders from the (regional) parties, comprising the leading members of the federal (and increasingly also) regional executives. Constitutional amendments, including the further devolution of powers to the Communities or Regions, have never been put to a public vote. Unlike in Canada, Australia or Switzerland, the referendum has never been used as an instrument of constitutional change in Belgium. Referendums do not t well with the more elitist policy culture of Belgium and may generate a polarizing effect if majorities in each linguistic community point in different directions. For this reason, the sole nationwide (consultative) referendum to have occurred in Belgium, that on the return from exile of King Leopold III in 1950 in spite of his alleged collaboration with the Nazis in the Second World War, almost ended in a national tragedy. While a nation-wide majority voted in favour of the Kings return, a majority of the electorate in Brussels and Wallonia voted against. A typical compromise emerged: the monarchy as an institution was upheld, but Leopold III abdicated in favour of his son, Baudouin (Lorwin, 1966). Intergovernmental conferences (IGCs) seeking to revise or establish a new EU Treaty have much in common with the process of constitutional change in Belgium: negotiations are conducted behind closed doors among heads of state and government and each of the participants can threaten a national veto but, after an intricate process of bargaining, a complex package deal typically emerges that leaves no one completely satised or dissatised. However, procedures for ratication vary from one member state to another: some member states require parliamentary consent (which could be problematic enough recall the cumbersome ratication of Maastricht by the UK Parliament); the constitutions of Denmark and Ireland prescribe binding referendums in some cases, whereas other member states may organize non-binding referendums (as France did on Maastricht). Furthermore, the EU equivalent to the Belgian national parliament, the EP, is almost completely sidelined during an intergovernmental conference. The deliberations that led to the emergence of the Constitutional Treaty widened the gap between the process of Belgian constitutional change and European Treaty reform. The IGC was preceded by a Convention comprising national and European parliamentarians, whose working methods were far more transparent than those of traditional IGCs. The convention itself comprised a wider number of stake-holders (e.g. also representatives from the EP, Commission, and European regions, the latter with a consultative status only) than IGCs. Given that the Constitutional Treaty will require the consent of all the member states, many of which have signalled their intention to organize referendums whether obligatory or consultative, the process of formal EU Treaty change will become even more difcult than before. Thus far, the member states have rmly anchored their roles as the masters of the Treaty, but nding unanimous agreement among 25 masters is more challenging than nding agreement among just two.

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Institutional Asymmetry vs. Policy Asymmetry Due to the presence of territorially dened Regions and linguistically dened Communities it is often claimed that Belgian federalism displays a high degree of institutional asymmetry (Agranoff, 1999). However, in practice, there is a signicant overlap between the concept of a Region and a Community. If we ignore the special cases of Brussels and the German-speaking Community, Communities are also territorially structured. For instance, the principle of personality only works as far as Brussels goes, since the French Community has no authority over, the admittedly relatively small group of, French-speakers who live in the Flemish Region and the Flemish Community has no say over the even smaller group of Dutch-speakers who live in the Walloon Region. Because the group of Dutch-speakers who live in Brussels compose such a small share of the total group of Dutch-speaking Belgians, the Flemish Community and Region have even merged their institutions. Consequently, there is only one Flemish government and parliament, catering for Regional competences (for citizens located in the Flemish region) and Community competences (addressing all inhabitants of the Flemish region and the Dutch-speakers in Brussels). Since the group of French-speakers who live in Brussels is substantially larger as a share of the total group of French-speaking Belgians, the French Community and Walloon Region have not been merged. Separate Regional and Community parliaments and governments continue to exist, although the French Communitys parliament is entirely composed of MPs who have been directly elected to the Brussels and Walloon regional parliaments respectively. In sum, the frequently made assumption that Belgium is a major example of asymmetric federalism primarily pertains to the incomplete congruence between Regional and Community borders: Brussels is a Region but not a Community, and the German-speakers have been recognized as a Community but not as a Region. However, unlike in Spain or the United Kingdom, the policy competences which have been assigned to each of the Regions or each of the Communities are almost identical. For example, although the German-speaking Community is almost 100 times smaller in population than the Flemish Community, both Communities share similar powers in educational or cultural policies (Alen and Ergec, 1994). The absence of considerable asymmetry in competences means that there is no Belgian equivalent of the British West Lothian Question (Scottish MPs can co-determine English affairs in asymmetrically devolved policies while the reverse is not true). Asymmetry in the EU has more in common with the British or Spanish than with the Belgian variant: each member state has identical formal status, but not all member states take part in all common policies (e.g. EMU, Schengen). The European answer to the West Lothian Question is to exclude British, Danish or Swedish Finance ministers from meetings that debate monetary policy in the Eurozone, as these take place in so-called Europe-12 gatherings.

Scope, Nature and Adjudication of Legislative, Administrative & Fiscal Competences Because Belgium developed from a unitary into a federal state, the competences of the Regions and Communities are specied in the federal constitution and in federal laws

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adopted with a special majority. As long as no constitutional article listing the powers of the federal government has been approved, the residual power, i.e. the powers or competences which have not been assigned to either level of government, remain in federal hands. In practice, the competences which have been assigned to the regional level are very detailed and extensive in scope (for an updated list of Community and Regional powers, see Hooghe, 2004). Extracting the Community and Regional competences from the total list of public competences leaves defence, justice, internal security, taxation policy and social security as the only federal competences. These federal powers are by no means insignicant: social security (including, for instance, unemployment insurance, pensions and the bulk of health care) is by far the most important expenditure, not only at the federal level, but for Belgian public policy as a whole. The extensive legislative autonomy of the Regions and Communities is paralleled by the presence of autonomous Regional and Community administrations. Belgium does not adopt the system of administrative federalism that is characteristic of German fed eralism (Jeffery, 1999; Borzel, 2002). In Belgium, federal laws are implemented by federal departments or agencies and Regional or Community laws are implemented by regional departments or agencies. A second feature which sets Belgian federalism apart from the German variant relates to its characterization as dual federalism: unlike in Germany, there is little concurrent federal legislation, formally prescribed joint action programmes or framework legislation. Consequently, with one minor exception, namely the power of the Regions to raise income taxes, Belgian federal and Regional laws stand on equal footing; both are subordinate only to the constitution. However, three elements put the policy autonomy of the Regions and Communities into context. First, EU policies directly affect the policy autonomy of the Regions and Communities, as EU directives pertain to Regional competences such as agriculture or the environment, or Community competences such as vocational training. The extent to which the Belgian sub-entities are involved in EU policy-making is unmatched by any of the other federal EU member states (see: Kerremans, 2000; Kerremans and Beyers, 2001, for an overview). However, the Regions are constrained in their decision-making autonomy insofar as Belgium must speak with one voice in the Council, a principle that is reminiscent of the voting procedures in the German Bundes rat (in which Lander must cast a homogeneous vote). Secondly, as far as scal federalism is concerned, the autonomy of the Regions and Communities is not in line with their legislative and administrative autonomy. The spending autonomy of the Regions is considerable, but their tax autonomy remains limited. Communities will never be able to raise their own revenue, partly a consequence of prescribing a soft version of the Community principle: inhabitants of Brussels should not declare a xed loyalty to the Dutch or the French Community. Regions, because they are dened on a strictly territorial basis, do not face such a restriction but, despite recent constitutional changes, their taxation autonomy remains relatively small (Verdonck and Deschouwer, 2003). Thirdly, policy areas have been specied in extreme detail, but slices that could be catalogued as belonging to identical or related policy elds have not necessarily been assigned to the same level or similar types of sub-national government. For instance, pensions are federal, but educational policy is not, thus, increasing the retirement

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age of teachers requires at the very least a cooperation agreement between the federal pensions minister and the education and budget ministers of the Communities (as it will affect the Community budget). Similarly, industrial policy is regional, but the railways are under federal control, thus improving industrial access to the port of Antwerp necessitates a cooperation agreement between the federal transport minister and the regional minister for economic development. If the federal minister for employment wishes to subject the recipient of unemployment benets to regular controls, they are dependent on the regionally controlled labour policy units for assembling the necessary data. Many more examples could be given of policy proposals, the success of which stands or falls with the level of horizontal and/or vertical cooperation. A requirement to inter-regional cooperation emerges on almost a daily basis and Belgian federalism has responded to such needs in two identiable ways. First, there is a strong inter-linkage between federal and regional levels, as members of the federal executive and parliament are embedded within regionally concentrated parties. The consociational mechanisms listed above ensure that the input of the major stake-holders is taken into account when a dispute emerges between the federal and regional levels of government. Broad, inclusive and congruent coalitions at the federal and regional levels of government facilitate the creation of compromises and have minimized the need for competence adjudication by judicial means, unlike, for instance, in Spain.2 Secondly, there is a so-called Deliberation Committee, which brings together leading representatives from the federal and regional executives. The Committee comprises 12 members, six of whom represent the federal government, the other six represent the Regional and Community governments, and are equally divided between Dutch- and French-speaking representatives. The Committee decides by consensus (Alen, 1995). In addition, a number of ad-hoc sectoral or inter-ministerial conferences coordinate views among specialist ministers or civil servants from different policy levels in selected policy elds. These may lead to the enactment of binding cooperation agreements between two or more governments. In contrast to Belgium, the EU treaties do not take a detailed listing of EU competences as their starting point. This may seem a wise decision, as the experience with the Belgian catalogue of competences has demonstrated that it needs regular adjustment and de facto modication or clarication by means of intergovernmental agreement. Furthermore, the formal adjustment of EU competences requires a higher institutional threshold, given that unanimity is upheld as a condition for formal Treaty change. As a corollary, EU competences have remained relatively open-ended. Even the envisaged listing of exclusive, shared and complementary EU competences in the proposed Constitutional Treaty exist alongside a more broadly dened set of EU objectives. The latter can be widely interpreted by the ECJ, which has played a much more important role in clarifying (or extending) EU powers than the Belgian Constitutional Court has played thus far in interpreting sub-national powers. Unlike in the Belgian context, the cooperation of the European and national levels is inbuilt insofar as most matters which are regulated by the European Union require national implementation. In this respect the method of assigning competences within the EU approximates the German model of administrative federalism (see Borzel in this volume).

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Finally, while the regulatory powers of the EU are extensive, EU policies do not take on a strongly redistributive role. EU policies may constrain the freedom of the member states in organizing redistributive (welfare policies) as they see t (Scharpf, 1999), but the EU lacks the policy and scal capacity (taxation powers) which the Belgian federal centre still retains in this regard. In sum, the elements of useful comparison are limited, if we focus on the structural features of the Belgian and EU multi-level polities. Belgium vs. the EU: Sustainability and Finalite Politique The federalization of Belgium is not without its merits. First, the Belgian process of devolution has been able to contain acute tensions between the Dutch- and Frenchspeaking groups. The last 20 years have witnessed relatively few demonstrations on a grand scale that can be linked directly to the malfunctioning of the federal system as such. Each of the last three federal governments has been able almost to complete their four-year legislative terms, which provides some evidence of institutional stability. By devolving powers which are close to the heart of the cultural (e.g. education) or socio-economic (e.g. industrial policy) preferences of the Communities or Regions, political elites have been able to tailor policies more closely to their own regional preferences (De Rynck, 2002). The willingness among representatives of the Flemish centre-left parties to maintain a strong federal redistributive role on social security, in particular, balances the desire of some Flemish centre-right party leaders to devolve certain components of social security policy to the Regions (most notably health care and child allowances). Secondly, although it has often been criticized for being extremely costly, federalism has reduced some of the expensive proto-federal practices that aimed at concealing disputes between the two Communities when Belgium was a unitary state. For instance, by offering comparable amounts of money to both linguistic communities, irrespective of assessing the objective need of such grants, expenditure programmes could not always be justied on the basis of objective need (e.g. a subway need not be built in Charlerloi just because one is constructed in Antwerp). Public nances are in better shape today than in the 1980s: for ve consecutive years the federal government has been running a balanced budget, and the total public debt ratio, which at 100 per cent of GDP remains very high, is decreasing: the percentage was as high as 135 per cent in the early 1990s. The Maastricht criteria served as a useful stick in this regard, but the experience of other Eurozone member states (Germany, France, Italy) demonstrates that running budget surpluses and reducing total public debt ratios is by no means easy in the present socio-economic context. Thirdly, notwithstanding the devolution of powers to the Regions and Communities, the Belgian population at large has been more willing to identify with Belgium. If citizens are asked to express their loyalty either exclusively to their Region or to Belgium, or equally to both, or more to the Region than with Belgium or vice versa (the so-called Moreno question), the share of citizens who have been willing to shift their identity to the Belgian rather than regional end of the continuum has increased rather than decreased over time (Moreno, Arriba and Serrano, 1998; De Winter, 2002). The shift is most notable in Flanders. Unlike their grandparents or even their parents, young adult Dutch-speakers who live in Flanders cannot reasonably invoke any

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discriminatory practices which may be linked to the language which they speak. Belgian federalism provides them with sufcient contexts of choice (Kymlicka, 1995) enabling them to prosper in their public or private life. Similarly, the European Union has contributed to relegating the atrocities of the twentieth century to our collective memory, even if the regular bickering in the Council, or the technical debates on sh quota or product standards often tend to overshadow the more vital contribution of the EU in forging European stability and peace. Moreover, the European identity is at best nascent; it remains overshadowed by national, and sometimes even regional, identities. However, the salience of national feelings may not be as strong and certainly not as exclusivist as in the period preceding the world wars (Hooghe and Marks, 2001: 51 67). Furthermore, one could make a case that Belgium needs a thicker feeling of national identity than the European Union requires a European identity because the Belgian centre is heavily involved in redistributive policies (particularly through social security programmes which serve as an indirect form of territorial solidarity given the relatively poor performance of the Walloon economy). Belgian federal expenditures are entirely nanced on the basis of federal taxes. In 2001, the Belgian federal government still spent twice as much as all of the Regional, Community and municipal governments combined. In contrast, EU expenditure is primarily nanced by member state contributions (upward revenue sharing), and may not amount to more than 1.27 per cent of the aggregate member states GDPs. Arguably, the EU would only be in need of a much stronger identity, if it were to raise taxes and engage directly in grand-scale redistributive programmes. Despite their obvious successes, the Belgian and European multi-level polities face two fundamental weaknesses. First, Belgian consociational federalism has worked best when the levels of public mobilization were low. The federalization of Belgium has been the result of complex institutional compromises, negotiated among a select group of party leaders representing the parties whose support is needed to ensure a two-thirds federal parliamentary majority. This partitocratic system has been operating relatively smoothly because regional and federal party elites have been willing to cooperate and share the cake. However, when the regional party systems move in increasingly divergent directions, as in the June 2004 regional elections, politicians may be willing, or forced, to give up their strategy of coordinating federal and regional politics simultaneously or may only be able to do so at a much higher cost than in the past. In contrast with Belgium, the European political arena cannot be understood in similar partitocratic terms, although European intergovernmental conferences do share a closed door, elitist style of decision-making with the debates that have preceded Belgian institutional change. The permissive consensus which traditionally formed the basis of much Belgian and European institutional progress has been increasingly undermined, as is exemplied by growing electoral dissent under the form of voting for anti-system parties in the Belgian case, and in the EU by the rejection in national referendums of proposals for further EU integration and the growing absenteeism in EP elections despite the EPs increase in powers of legislative veto. National governments can be formed on the basis of national electoral outcomes, free from EU inuence (although certain voices of discontent emerged within the EU when

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right-wing parties such as the FPO and Allianze Nationale entered the Austrian and Italian central governments respectively). In Belgium, as we have seen, federal and regional political elites make concerted efforts to coordinate coalition formation in the regional and federal arenas: the inuence works in both directions, as federal and regional elites are strongly intertwined. In contrast, the European electorate as a whole has relatively little inuence on the composition of the European political institutions. Apart from the European Parliament, no single European political institution can claim a direct mandate from the people. Arguably, national citizens would take a stronger interest in EP elections if the trans-European party groups were to present their respective candidates for the Commission presidency (rather than to await the proposal of the national governments), and if the elected president were then entirely free to choose their Commissioners (only respecting the national quota).3 This would increase the stakes in EP elections while retaining the inclusive, majority-constraining character of the European centre, as the European Council would hold rm to its position of (collective) legislative veto. Secondly, the nalite politique of Belgium and of the European Union are undened. The institutional equilibrium of both polities is in doubt and some would even question their long-term sustainability. We cannot take their democratic or their institutional acquis for granted. The weaknesses of the Belgian system are the dyadic nature of the federation exemplied by the presence of two dominant Regions (Flanders and Wallonia), the bipolar and linguistically split party system, and the absence of a public sphere that transcends the linguistic communities. As there is no one to speak for the centre, there may be no stoppage to the process of further hollowing out federal competences (Deschouwer, 2002; Hooghe, 2004). This may contrast with popular attitudes, as much of the current public attention is focused on strengthening internal security and the judicial apparatus, and on upholding the core values of the social security system. These competences are federal, but the extra money that may be needed to streamline and modernize them must be measured against the federal objective of keeping the budget tight and reducing overall public debt ratios. Regional governments are less constrained by these objectives, as the federal government remains the prime income raiser and debt manager. By comparison, the presence of 25 member states within the EU facilitates the emergence of shifting coalitions of the willing. As in Belgium, however, it is not clear who can speak for the European centre. Like Belgium, the EU may have reached a critical juncture in its development: monetary policy puts a scal straitjacket on EMU member state governments. The weakness of any European identity, as well the territorial protection of national languages defended at the outset of this article, reduce the probability of labour mobility among EU workers. As EU citizens, with the exception of a well-educated elite perhaps, are not likely to vote with their feet, the centre may feel compelled to strengthen its redistributive capacity. In this regard, Belgium and the EU face similar challenges (Van Parijs, 2000). In the case of Belgium, the main challenge ahead is to preserve high levels of inter-regional solidarity in the face of low levels of inter-regional labour mobility and the absence of a Belgian public sphere. In the European context, the challenge must be to forge higher levels of solidarity between the member states, despite the lack of a European public sphere and low levels of inter-national labour mobility.

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One method for achieving high levels of inter-regional solidarity is to create intercommunity or inter-national links in the electoral process, so that politicians who are active at the Belgian federal or European Union level are answerable to public opinion not just in one region or one member state, as currently appears to be the case. While this may be easily accomplished on paper, the real difculty ahead is to nd a way that enables policy actors and the public to support such a move. For instance, in the Belgian context, Communities could encourage inhabitants to learn the language of the other Community without undermining their defence of the principle of territoriality. Even a passive knowledge of the other language could make certain mutual problems comprehensible and could possibly help foster trans-Community (political) ties in the longer run. Similarly, the mere existence of European parliamentary elections is insufcient to make EU citizens comprehend how EU policies impact on their daily lives or why European policy proposals may be differently received in member states other than their own. Knowledge of other European languages and the ensuing ability to understand the debates in other member states could help. Such steps require political courage, as political leaders in both polities often prioritize shortterm electoral gains over long-term institutional stability. As the Belgian electorates and parties are bifurcated and European electorates continue to think in national terms, politicians continue to believe that they have more to gain from playing respectively the regionalist or national card rather than a Belgian or European one. Despite these mounting challenges, there is a sign of hope. The Belgian and European experiences suggest that institutional reform stands a better chance of success if reform proposals are introduced incrementally, rather than swiftly. If we accept that there is sufcient scope left for piecemeal but recurrent institutional reform of the sort that is encapsulated in the EU then the long-term sustainability of the Belgian federation too may be less gloomy than is frequently assumed. Conclusion This article sought to draw comparisons between Belgium in its efforts to hold together a multi-national polity and the EU in its struggle to secure its policies and democratic acquis in the context of enlargement. In Belgium, the entrenchment of linguistic territorial rights where possible, as in Flanders and Wallonia, combined with soft bilingualism when needed, as in Brussels or some of its surrounding municipalities, paved the way to an intricate and complex federalization process. As the application of the territoriality principle generated relative calm, the Belgian experience suggests that the EU is wise not to impose a single European lingua franca from above, but rather to respect the linguistic integrity of the member states. The de facto dyadic character of the Belgian federation, politically reected by the presence of two parallel party systems, serves as a structural weakness. However, it enabled positions of mutual veto to be accorded to the major linguistic segments in the governance of the federation and in Brussels. Given the increasing number of EU member states, the decision-making rules at the EU level can at best be majority-constraining. In this regard, European multi-polarity may not always pit the same protagonists against each other (advantage), but the member states face the prospect of being outvoted from time to time.

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The Belgian experience with a (regional) competence catalogue has demonstrated that, if they are excessively detailed, such lists need to be regularly claried or else adjusted by political or judicial means. Therefore, the EU would probably be better off with a more open-ended catalogue, especially if unanimity were to be retained as a requirement for its amendment. Indeed, the Constitutional Treaty, while distinguishing between exclusive, shared and supporting or complementary powers (Articles I 11 15, Constitutional Treaty), lists the broader objectives of EU integration and has retained scope for exibility, such as via Article 17 (ex-Article 308 TEU). Finally, the EU is not yet fully politicized. In contrast, the Belgian federal arena certainly is. However, both polities face increasing dissent from their electorates. Such dissent may be voiced, less against the very existence of Belgium or the European Union itself than against what both polities stand for and how they should be organized internally. While policy-makers should be receptive to such arguments, complex and compounded polities are usually better off when subjected to piecemeal and pragmatic reform than to some sort of institutional tabula rasa. The challenge ahead for both Belgium and the EU is not to cave in to populist demands (despite the short-term electoral time span of politicians) and to devise solutions that could stimulate the gradual emergence of a trans-Community, and trans-European public sphere. Notes
1

In 1831, the Belgian capital was still a predominantly Flemish-speaking city; by the 1960s it had become French-speaking for approximately 85 per cent of its (much extended) population. 2 The relatively modest role of the Constitutional Court is also the product of its relatively short history the Court did not start operating until 1984 and of its rather limited competence. The Court can only control the compliance of federal and regional laws with the principles of equality, freedom of education and ideology, and with the distribution of competences as spelled out in the constitution or in federal special majority laws, not with all articles of the constitution. 3 The saga on the selection of Barosso as Commission President (June 2004) shows how difcult nding a suitable Commission President may be, even if the choice were left entirely in the hands of the transnational party groups. It took the European Christian Democrat European Peoples Party a considerable amount of time to propose Chris Patten, a candidate who, like the Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, ultimately failed to garner sufcient support in the European Council. For further discussions on this theme, see Smith (2005).

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