Belgium and Its Regions

Abstract

For a long time, Belgium was a consensual and pillarized society with a history of coalition governments. It has a strong administrative law and Rechtstaat tradition, and the basic traits of its administrative system refer to the Napoleonic tradition. The senior level of public managers in its administration is heavily politicized. Since the 1970s, the Belgian unitary state became increasingly subjected to a federalization process, resulting in a federal state with a complicated internal structure. Basically, there are two main member regions—Flanders and Wallonia— with the Brussels region and the German community having a specific position. In particular, most domestic service-delivery functions at the federal level have been moved to the regional governments. In this text, we not only discuss agencification at the federal level, but also consider the diverging practices at the Flemish and Walloon levels.