A Flemish nationalist party that captures tens of thousands of votes in Wallonia, three political families disunited since the 1970s presenting joint lists once again: two previously unimaginable features of Belgium’s federal elections on 9 June make more credible than ever an idea that would revolutionise Belgium’s political life.
Philosopher Philippe Van Parijs reflects on current debates in Brussels, Belgium and Europe
The Pavia Group’s remedy for Belgium’s electoral pathology
On 14 February 2007, a group of academics from all Belgian universities made public a simple proposal that aimed to revitalize Belgium’s federal democracy. For the elections to the federal Chamber of representatives, they proposed to create a new, country-wide constituency in which 15 of the Chamber’s 150 members would be elected. Inspired by the name of the Brussels street where it used to meet, the group called itself the Pavia Group. Its proposal became known as federale kieskring or circonscription fédérale.
The case in favour of it is rooted in what the Pavia Group regarded as a pathological feature of Belgium’s democracy. In 1968, a fierce conflict between the French-speaking and Dutch-speaking communities ended with the expulsion of Belgium’s largest and oldest Francophone university from the Flemish town of Leuven. In the aftermath of this traumatic crisis, all three national political parties — Christian-democratic, liberal and socialist — split along the linguistic divide. Since then, given that Belgium’s proportional electoral system uses provincial constituencies, Walloon politicians have addressed only a Walloon electorate, and Flemish politicians only a Flemish one.
As a result, we have two sets of parties trying to outbid one another by formulating demands that are unacceptable to the other community, followed by long stalemates and ill-thought out compromises when parties from each side have to form a federal government. Once a federal constituency is created, the Pavia Group argued, Belgium’s main political leaders, those who want to govern the country, would all stand as candidates in it. Consequently, they would be forced, or at least strongly motivated, to address both Flemings and Walloons and to articulate projects that serve, or claim to serve, the country’s general interest.
The Pavia Group's proposal was actively debated after it was made public. It was the subject of a hearing in the federal parliament in 2014 and it made its way into international political science literature. It has popped up on and off ever since, often to be dismissed as an illusory, even counterproductive measure that would do nothing to mend Belgium’s degeneration into the uncomfortable juxtaposition of two democracies. It was also sometimes denounced as a Belgicist plot to resurrect the unitary state and unravel the autonomy of the regions.
To make the minor revision of the constitution that would create a federal constituency, a two-thirds parliamentary majority is required. For a long time, this seemed at best a remote prospect. Several recent events suggest, however, that the idea is now making further and perhaps decisive progress.
The right to vote for those one trusts
"We can no longer continue without a federal constituency. Politicians have to be accountable in both parts of the country. I'm talking about a limited number of seats, around fifteen, but anyone who wants to become prime minister will have to be elected on this list." Thus spoke Georges-Louis Bouchez in an interview published in De Standaard, Belgium’s main quality newspaper, on 3 May 2024. Bouchez is the young president of the Francophone liberal party, the Mouvement réformateur (MR) and uncontroversially the great winner of the 9 June federal and regional elections on the Francophone side. He is therefore an indispensable partner in the formation of the next federal government. And his vigorous plea for a federal constituency may well find an unprecedentedly receptive audience.
Firstly, as explained in an editorial by journalist Bart Brinckman, the role played by party presidents in Belgian politics and election campaigns is more salient than ever. He voters' trust in them is therefore legitimately an important consideration in the choices they make. But, given that Belgium’s electoral system operates with provincial constituencies, most voters do not have the opportunity to vote for them. Brinckman concludes: "The mismatch between the top candidates and the constituencies calls for reform. This feeds the case for a federal constituency" (De Standaard, 7/6/24).
Sister parties reunited after fifly years
Secondly, people opposed to the - federal constituency often object that national parties are dead and that the parties that split up half a century ago will never form a joint list again. But the far-left Belgian Labour Party (PTB-PVDA) is a unitary party that has recently achieved a significant presence in all three regions (8.3% in Flanders, 12.1% in Wallonia, 16.8% in Brussels). Further, the two green parties (Groen and Ecolo), born independently after the 1968 crisis, have presented a joint list for the federal elections in the Brussels constituency since 2014.
In addition and most crucially, the 9 June federal elections saw something unprecedented and, until recently, unimaginable. For the first time, the three political families that had split up in the 1970s presented common lists in the Brussels constituency. This can be regarded as a delayed consequence of the splitting of the electoral constituency of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde in 2012. With the Brussels constituency stripped of the Flemish periphery of the Brussels region, Flemish parties gradually realized that they could not get anyone elected in it if they presented separate lists. In order not to waste votes that could not yield a seat, they therefore decided, one after the other, to strike deals with their Francophone counterparts.
Thus, the Flemish liberal OpenVLD decided to joined forces with the Mouvement réformateur, the Flemish socialist Vooruit with the Parti socialiste, and the Flemish Christian-democratic CD&V with its sister party now called Les Engagés. Judging from preference votes, this boosted the votes on the three Francophone lists by a total of at least 37,000 votes. The electoral incentive to present joint lists will be at least as strong in a future federal constituency with 15 seats as it is in the current Brussels constituency with 16.
Flemish nationalists fishing for Walloon votes
What about parties without a sister party? At the parliamentary hearing on the federal constituency held in 2014, both Flemish nationalist parties, the far-right Vlaams Belang and the centre-right New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) formed a sturdy front against the idea. But times have changed. Witness the N-VA’s unexpected initiative to put forward candidates in all the Walloon constituencies in the 9 June federal elections.
The initiative was a success, with 40,716 Walloon votes cast for them. As a result, 125,000 euros per year will be added to the N-VA's public funding. But the N-VA already has too much money. What interests the N-VA, or at least Bart De Wever, its president, now that he has abandoned the idea of splitting Belgium, is a thorough reform of the country. But the institutional reforms he wants require a parliamentary super-majority, which can only be achieved if enough Walloons are convinced of their desirability. Hence this astonishing electoral presence in Wallonia.
Needless to say, such a presence would be far more effective, including in terms of the induced media presence, if it were the party's leading figures and Bart De Wever himself who were eligible and campaigning in Wallonia — as would be the case with a federal constituency. When asked in April 2024 by the Flemish nationalist magazine Doorbraak what she thought of the N-VA’s decision to present lists in Wallonia, Meryem Almaci, former president of the Flemish green party Groen, replied: "It is the best argument in favour of a federal constituency [...]. It's really in your interest, as a Flemish politician, to have an audience in Wallonia. As a Walloon politician, you can then be judged in Flanders. And you can build better bridges with the other part of the country, which you need anyway to get things moving." She is right, and Bart De Wever is clever enough to understand it.
Moreover, he creation of a federal constituency would not stand in the way of pursuing one central objective of the N-VA’s confederal plan for Belgium, namely to make the federated entities more accountable and thereby prevent some of them from running up huge deficits at the expense of the other entities and of future generations. Nor would it stand in the way of promoting a “confederal” perception of Belgium as made up of four deelstaten — not only Flanders and Wallonia, also Brussels and Ostbelgien — that have to decide, two by two or all four at the same time, what is appropriate for them to do together. Nor would it prevent a Flemish nationalist leader from becoming Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Belgium.
