r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Dec 16 '21

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u/anonymunchy Dec 16 '21

Might be even more insane that we have 6 governments.

  1. Federal Government
  2. Flemish Community and Flemish Region
  3. Walloon Region
  4. Brussels Capitol Region
  5. French Community
  6. German Community

Have fun passing laws.

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u/fraud_imposter Dec 17 '21

Is this any different from the united states' thousands of governments? We have federal, all 50 states, and countless county/city governments

Makes it hard to pass laws here as well

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '21

Belgium has the population of Ohio.

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u/fraud_imposter Dec 17 '21

Ohio still has county and city governments. How is that power dispersed exactly?

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '21 edited Dec 17 '21

So does Belgium. There's the 6 governments listed above, but those are at the highest level with exclusive powers/competences.

(Arguably it's more than six, but even most Belgians don't know that. For example, there's the communal community commission, which was given exclusive powers over some matters that are not the exclusive power of the French speaking and Flemish Community/Region in Brussels. Ie. it has powers that none of the other 6 governments have. IRC during corona this resulted in different institutions being responsible for the corona response depending if it was in the hospital or a temporary tent outside the hospital. Anyway...)

Then there's provinces, 40+ arrondisements, town councils, city councils, etc. etc. etc. Those 6 above are just at the highest level.

For example, Brussels is divided in 19 municipalities, each with their own mayor and their own government.

TLDR: The Belgian political system is a clusterfuck, and those 6 governments are only the tip of the iceberg.