Belgium is a relatively small, but divided democratic country in West-Europe. It’s a part of the European Union and NATO. Belgium has a very complicated political structure. It’s so complicated that even some Belgian people do not understand it. There are large economical, political and cultural differences between the different regions of Belgium, with the consequence that after the elections of 2010, it took 541 days in negotiations before the new ministers of the federal parliament were chosen. The battle between two different communities in one country: Belgium.

The Six Parliaments

Belgium is divided into communities and regions. In the north, comprising Flanders and Brussels is the Flemish-speaking community. In the south, Wallonia and Brussels form the French community. And you have a small German-speaking community in the east. In the Brussels Capital Regions, there are two communities in power. Each community has its own parliament. These parliaments go over subjects that are close to the people, like education, culture, sports, and well-being.

Next, we have the regions, there are three regions: the Flanders region in Flanders, the Brussels Capital Region in Brussels and the Walloon Region in Wallonia and the German-speaking part of Belgium. Each region has again their own parliament. The regions take care of all topics (at the regional level), except the topics of the communities. Flanders is a bit different, in that they have fused their two parliaments.

The sixth and final Belgian parliament is the Federal Parliament. This parliament rules over the whole country on a federal level.

The 2019 Elections

The 2019 elections were one of the tensest elections in Belgian history. The results of the federal elections were almost opposite between Flanders and Wallonia.

Flanders

1. The most votes went to the right party of NVA. With 26 % of the Flemish votes, they lost 8% of votes in comparison to the 2014 elections.
2. Second came the relatively new political party: Vlaams Belang (Flemish Importance). This party is extremely right and nationalist Flemish. With 19% of the votes, it saw a 13% rise in comparison to the 2014 elections.
3. Next came the neutral party CD&V, with 14% it lost 5% of its votes.
4. The central-right party of Open VLD also secured 14% of votes, with a slight decrease.
5. The first left party, SPA, collected 10% of the votes with a decrease of 5% since the last elections.
6. Second, to last came the left party of Groen (Green party), with a little less than 10% this election, they got a slight increase in votes.
7. With 6% PVDA, the extreme left party came last (of the big parties). But the number of votes did increase by 4% since the last elections in 2014.

Conclusion: 60% of Flemish people voted right, 14% voted neutral and the remaining 26% voted left. The increase in votes for the extreme right party of Vlaams Belang stands out the most.

Wallonia

1. A quarter of the people in Wallonia voted for the political party of the PS (a brother party of the Flemish SPA). This left party did lose 4% of the votes in comparison to the elections of 2014.
2. The right party of MR (related to the Flemish OpenVLD) collected 20% of the votes with a 6% loss.
3. The first party to increase their votes, with 8% is Ecolo (Green party, related to the Flemish party of Groen). 18% of the votes went to this left party.
4. The extremely left party of PVDA who was voted on the least in Flanders came fourth in Wallonia. This party increased their votes too, with 10% to 15%.
5. The neutral party of cdH came fifth with 13% and lost 4% since the last elections.
6. The central party of DéFl got 6%, with a slight loss.
7. The right party of PP, which is now no longer active got 3% of the votes.

Conclusion: only 23% of Walloon's voted right, 19% central and the majority, with 58% voted left. In Wallonia, the biggest unexpected riser was, in contradiction to Flanders, the extreme left party of PVDA.

The problem

Flanders is voting right, Wallonia is voting left. Flanders (extreme) right voters want to be independent of Wallonia. Wallonia’s extreme left voters want more economic support from Flanders and want to remain as one country.

To know from where these differences come, we need to look a bit deeper at the culture and history of both Flanders and Wallonia.

In the times of the industrial revolution, the economy in Wallonia was booming. The underground in Wallonia is rich in coals and metals. Big factories were set up, which brought in lots of money. In 1984 the last mine closed its doors. The economy in Wallonia wasn’t thriving anymore, it was difficult to switch on from an industrial economy.

At that time Flanders economy was growing. There were a lot of employment possibilities in the new businesses that started all over Flanders.

Today, the average annual income in Wallonia is 12% lower than in Flanders (Statbel — 2017). The unemployment rate in Wallonia is with 7.6% more than 4% higher than in Flanders (Statbel — Last quarter of 2019).

But the differences aren’t only economical, there are cultural differences too. Only 19% of Walloon’s speak Dutch fluently (University of Louvain-la-Neuve) most Walloon children do not even learn Dutch in school. In Flanders, 53% of people speak French fluently. And in school, you are obligated to learn French for 8 years from the age of 10 (Normal education). A lot of people in Flanders, therefore, do not understand why they need to learn French for eight years, while in Wallonia they don’t even make an effort to teach Dutch.

Right Flemish parties, like Vlaams Belang and NVA, want to create an independent Flanders, so they can stop financially supporting Wallonia and stop the upcoming Frenchification.

And Brussels…

Brussels forms another big problem.

• The Brussels Capital Region is the poorest region of Belgium (Statbel — 2017) and has the highest unemployment rate (Statbel — last quarter of 2019).
• The region has two official languages: Dutch and French. But in reality, most people speak French. 95% of people in Brussels are able to fluently speak French, only 59% can speak fluent Dutch (University of Louvain-La-Neuve). The regions in Flanders around Brussels are Frechificating, with more and more people only speaking French, instead of Dutch. Of course, Flanders (and especially the right parties) do not want this change.

There’s another big problem with Brussels. Who will get it, if Belgium divides?

• The right parties of Flanders, want Brussels to be a part of independent Flanders, as it’s geographically completely located in Flanders.
• Some people think Brussels needs to be a European District (like Washington DC), as most of the European Union buildings are located in Brussels.
• Brussels suggests that the Brussels Capital Region could be a more autonomous region, under the wings of both Wallonia and Flanders.
• The last possibility is that Brussels will be a part of Wallonia since the most spoken language in Brussels is French.

Is Belgium going to Separate?

Even though the support for nationalist, right Flemish parties raised in the aftermath of the last elections. Opinion polls show that (only) 20–30% of Flemish people actually want to separate from Wallonia. There are no official numbers for Wallonia, but we can assume that the percentage of Walloon’s that want to separate from Flanders is very small.

Realistically, the chances of Belgium separating in the next 10 or 20 years seem small. Even though differences between Wallonia and Flanders are growing and the support for extreme right parties in Flanders is growing too.

Belgium, an always divided country is becoming more divided. But even with the problems of today, the chances of the 180-year-old Belgium actually separating in the near future seem very small. They just need each other too much, for the separation to happen.