Naar een België met zijn vieren? / Vers une Belgique à quatre ?


To all those who expressed interest in the Re-Bel initiative:

It is our pleasure to announce our next online public event to be held on Thursday the 22nd of April from 1pm to 2.30 pm on the question of whether and how Belgium should evolve towards a simpler territorial federalism based on four regions. Details can be found below. This is only a save-the-date message. An invitation to register will be sent to you in due course

At the same time, we wish to draw your attention to the recordings of our previous webinars, all available on our website. This now includes the webinar of March 1st on the "dialogue platform on the future of Belgium's federalism", with the participation of federal ministers Annelies Verlinden and David Clarinval.

The exceptionally constraining conditions under which the pandemic forces us to operate should not prevent us from thinking hard about how to improve our institutions. Indeed, they provide a further reason to do so.

Best wishes,

Paul De Grauwe and Philippe Van Parijs,
coordinators of the Re-Bel initiative

Thursday 22 April 2021, 1-2.30pm

Naar een België met zijn vieren? Vers une Belgique à quatre?
Whether expressed as "2+2", as "3+3-2" or simply as "4", there seems to be growing support for the idea that Belgium's federal structure could be more legible and more efficient if it simply consisted in four territorially defined components: Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels and Ostbelgien. This would enable the parliaments and governments of each one of these components to exercise a more comprehensive and coherent set of competences. But in this simplified federal Belgium, how should the competences currently exercised by the Flemish and French Communities be efficiently reallocated and sustainably funded? Must the reallocation operate in the same way in all sectors, from culture and education to scientific research and the media, and must it operate symmetrically for the competences of the French and Flemish Community? Can the outcome be improved democratic accountability rather than wasteful duplication ?

Language regime: Dutch and French
Moderation : Béatrice DELVAUX (Le Soir) & Karel VERHOEVEN (De Standaard)
Welcoming: Philippe VAN PARIJS (Re-Bel & UCLouvain)
Introduction: Sven GATZ (Finance minister in the governement of the Region of Brussels-Capital) and Paul MAGNETTE (president of the Parti socialiste)
Challenges: André ALEN (KU Leuven), Céline ROMAINVILLE (UCLouvain) and Willem SAS (University of Stirling)
General discussion
Concluding comments: Paul DE GRAUWE (Re-Bel & LSE)

Prior registration is indispensable. A zoom link will be sent to all those registered shorty before the event.