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Another venting thread. I am majorly pissed off at Belgium and its inherent tendency to make everything overly complicated. We have little over 10 million people living here, but we have, by far (at least to my awareness) the most complex structure of federal/stately organization there is....There's a reason why Belgians are considered to be experts in constitutional and organizational (sp?) law (i.e. team of Belgian specialists is helping to make the Iraqi Constitution)....we make things too fucking complicated so everything else is pretty much a breeze. 
Reason for this little ramble is the exam I'm taking in two days 'Staatsrecht' (Law and principles concerning the organization of a country and all of its governmental bodies (governments, courts, parliaments, elections, etc....).
Basically we have a Dutch (Flemmish), French and German population. The Germans shut up most of the time, since they're a small minority anyways. But there's constant tension between the southern part of Belgium (Wallonie), which is french and the Flemmish, northern part.
Basically we have three seperate governments for Flemmish, French and German concerning Cultural and Personal matters. (= Communities)
Three seperate governments for economic matters: Flemmish, French and Brussels. (= 'Gewesten')
We have a Federal government as well.
And of course Brussels is a clusterfuck: federal authority for billingual institutions and whatnot, Community authority for monolingual institutions, Brussels City authority for city matters, but these are controlled by the Brussels 'Gewest'. Shared community authority for bi-personal (personal matters that are bilingual) matters through the parliament of the Brussels.
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This has been going on for over a century now, ever since Belgium was founded and its constution was formed in 1831.
The french used to be the rich and the powerful, now the Flemmish are the economically more advanced (the french are drowning in unemployment, fraude, scandal and whatnot).
Basically this means we have about 9 different parliaments, over 12 or something (even I lost count) governments on a NATIONAL FEDERAL level. All of these can pass their own Laws, which results in a gigantic spiderweb of regulations and allround BULLSHIT.
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I foresee the demise of Belgium as it is within the next 20 years. The continued partition between the French and Flemmish going to continue and Belgium itself will just be one name for two differents countries.
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One very striking example of this is the so called 'federal solidarity tax'. Which means that per percent a certain area is under the average income per capita, it gets funding from the other areas.
Now we flemmish work hard and our economy is still quite sound, while in the French part unemployment is high and they're not doing didilly SHIT about it!
Listen to this:
EVERY YEAR about 14 BILLION euros goes from Flanders to the French part of Belgium (with taxes and intrests this borders at about 20 BILLION EUROS).
As if we weren't taxed highly enough already, this means about $1300 PER flemmish person (including me,when I'm going to draw my paycheck) goes to a French person every............................MONTH!
How's that for solidarity!
[/rant]
Reason for this little ramble is the exam I'm taking in two days 'Staatsrecht' (Law and principles concerning the organization of a country and all of its governmental bodies (governments, courts, parliaments, elections, etc....).
Basically we have a Dutch (Flemmish), French and German population. The Germans shut up most of the time, since they're a small minority anyways. But there's constant tension between the southern part of Belgium (Wallonie), which is french and the Flemmish, northern part.
Basically we have three seperate governments for Flemmish, French and German concerning Cultural and Personal matters. (= Communities)
Three seperate governments for economic matters: Flemmish, French and Brussels. (= 'Gewesten')
We have a Federal government as well.
And of course Brussels is a clusterfuck: federal authority for billingual institutions and whatnot, Community authority for monolingual institutions, Brussels City authority for city matters, but these are controlled by the Brussels 'Gewest'. Shared community authority for bi-personal (personal matters that are bilingual) matters through the parliament of the Brussels.
-----
This has been going on for over a century now, ever since Belgium was founded and its constution was formed in 1831.
The french used to be the rich and the powerful, now the Flemmish are the economically more advanced (the french are drowning in unemployment, fraude, scandal and whatnot).
Basically this means we have about 9 different parliaments, over 12 or something (even I lost count) governments on a NATIONAL FEDERAL level. All of these can pass their own Laws, which results in a gigantic spiderweb of regulations and allround BULLSHIT.
----------
I foresee the demise of Belgium as it is within the next 20 years. The continued partition between the French and Flemmish going to continue and Belgium itself will just be one name for two differents countries.
-----
One very striking example of this is the so called 'federal solidarity tax'. Which means that per percent a certain area is under the average income per capita, it gets funding from the other areas.
Now we flemmish work hard and our economy is still quite sound, while in the French part unemployment is high and they're not doing didilly SHIT about it!
Listen to this:
EVERY YEAR about 14 BILLION euros goes from Flanders to the French part of Belgium (with taxes and intrests this borders at about 20 BILLION EUROS).
As if we weren't taxed highly enough already, this means about $1300 PER flemmish person (including me,when I'm going to draw my paycheck) goes to a French person every............................MONTH!
How's that for solidarity!
[/rant]
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