Talk:Belgian Federal Parliament

Untitled

Do not delete, you must be kidding! Is this vandalism? --Edcolins 21:12, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

• No, I asked for the merging/deletion since the same information that is posted on the Politics of Belgium page is posted here. The only thing I see that is new is just the names of the houses are translated into several languages. Zscout370 21:14, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Well, the article has certainly room for improvement and expansion, but I wouldn't merge it with Politics of Belgium, which is a much broader subject. --Edcolins 21:20, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)
    • My question is what else could we expand on this area. This is from the article from Politics of Belgium: Chamber, the 'first house' of the Parliament

The number of seats in the Chamber is constitutionally set at 150 elected from 20 electoral districts. Each district is given a number of seats proportional to its population (not number of voters) ranging from 4 for the Luxembourg district to 22 for Brussels. The districts are divided along linguistic lines: 10 Flemish, 9 Walloon, and the bilingual district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. Eligibility requirements for the Chamber are a minimum age of 21, citizenship, and residency in Belgium. All districts have an electoral threshold of 5%, except for Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde, Walloon Brabant and Leuven; all districts are monolingual, except for Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde which encompasses both the 19 bilingual municipalities from the Brussels-Capital region as some 35 Dutch-speaking municipalities in Flemish Brabant, incl. 6 with linguistic facilities for French-speakers.

[edit] Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde district This existence of this electoral district was condemned in 2002 as unconstitutional by the Arbitration Court (Dutch: Arbitragehof, French: Cour d'Arbitrage), without however requesting the splitting of the district.

The reasons behind this ruling are as follows: the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde electoral district includes both the bilingual Brussels-Capital region and the unilingual Dutch Halle-Vilvoorde. Brussels is constitutionally bilingual. As such, its voters can choose candidates from both communities for European and national elections. However, because of the amalgated Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde electoral district, that possibility is extended to the French-speakers in the unilingual Halle-Vilvoorde district. That allows French-speaking candidates from Brussels and Wallonia (thus from outside the Flemish region and from outside the constitutional Dutch-only area) to attract votes from outside their electoral district. The current amalgated Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde electoral district breaches both the constitutionally established provincial borders as well as by the borders between the linguistic areas, and between the communities.

At the same time, Flemish candidates have no possibility to attract votes from Flemings living in Wallonia, even not from those in Walloon municipalities with legally established facilities. The court ruled this unconstitutional, to much controversy.

[edit] Senate The Senate consists of 71 seats. For electoral purposes Senators are divided into four categories: directly elected; appointed by the community assemblies; co-opted Senators; and Senators of Law ("Senatoren van rechtswege", in Dutch). For the election of the 25 Flemish and 15 francophone directly elected Senators, the country is divided into three electoral districts. Of the Senators representing the communities, 10 are elected by the Flemish Council, 10 by the French Council, and 1 by the German-language Council.

The third category, the co-opted Senators, consists of 10 representatives elected by the first two groups of Senators. Eligibility requirements for the Senate are identical to those for the Chamber.

The final category, that of Senators of Law, consists of those members of the Royal Family that are direct children of the reigning King and eligible to the throne. In the past, until 1991, these could only be men, since women couldn't be heir to the throne before that day. At this time, however, this is no longer true; and at this time, Princess Astrid, Prince Filip, and Prince Laurent exercise their constitutional right for a seat in the Senate. It must be noted however that since the Royal Family is supposed to be neutral, an unwritten law states that Senators of Law should not participate in Senate votes, even though they officially have the right to do so.

• • • Hold on, I am cleaning the mess in the Politics of Belgium article. --Edcolins 21:36, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)
      • Ok, I will. The delete notice has been removed. Zscout370 21:44, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Electoral system

It is not clear whether the parlementarians are elected by majoritarian or PR system. This is much more important than how many districts there are. It is fundamental to the composition of the parliament.

Please be more clear. However, I've done some reading on that, and I think it's neither, they use d'Hondt. However, it's not that simple either, considering Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde...(Please sign your comments with four tildas so I can see who you are)Evilbu 22:11, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

d'Hondt is a PR system (though it slightly favours larger parties). --Roentgenium111 (talk) 22:22, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

this article has way too much details, while the Chamber article doesn't mention those!

Belgian Chamber of People's Representatives doesn't mention any of those electoral districts. It should be the other way around! More details about the Chamber in the article about the Chamber, than in an article about the bicameral parliament in general. What do you think?(Note : I'm not against details, I don't wanna remove any of that from all of Wikipedia, on the contrary...)Evilbu 22:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Vocabulary

The concept of "competency" is not familiar to Americans and is not explained or linked. -- Beland 23:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

CD&V - N-VA

In spite of the election cartel formed by them, I think the number of seats of each of the parties should be made visible (not only the seats won by the cartel) as the CD&V is part of the new government coalition and the N-VA is not. --217.233.207.67 (talk) 17:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

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Numbers in table and in tableau do not correspond, but no explanation is given. Source does not seem to support the event it is supposed to support.

Why do the the numbers in the table not correspond to those in the tableau?

• table: N-VA = 25; tableau: N-VA = 24;
• table: PS = 20; tableau: PS = 19;
• table: Independents = 0; tableau: Independents = 2.

Or why is no explanation given for the difference?

And why does the first source not correspond to the event that it is supposed to support, namely "King Philippe of Belgium took the constitutional oath"?Redav (talk) 21:38, 16 October 2020 (UTC)