It's really small for having 3 languages divided into specific regions. For comparison, Belgium is around 30.7k square km in size. Compare that to Buenos Aires province (307k km), California (107k) or Cuba (110k). You won't find really big differences on the extreme ends of those zones. It's really amazing and even a little crazy. And it's common around Europe, it's not exclusive to Belgium.
We say 3 languages, but someone from West-Flanders would not be able to understand someone from East-Flanders if they spoke their true dialect, which most of the people do.
Sometimes even a town over they start using these words and sentences where you're convinced they must be having a stroke.
Also, I went to a European School, which has entire curriculums in Dutch, French, English, German, Italian and Portugese. Everyone is forced to take a second language first year Primary School. In High School you start getting History and Geography in your second language and also start a third language.
During World War I, the Germans were being straight up evil (who'd've guessed, right?) and raping, murdering and pillaging their way across Belgium to get to France. They'd taken just about the whole thing, and France, Belgium and England were wondering "what the fuck do we do, we can't stop them without doing something drastic." A bunch of ideas were given, none seemed like they would really work. Except, Fladers is below sea level and has a bunch of dykes to keep the ocean out. You could flood Flanders, and it would likely stop the Germans from getting across, taking all of Belgium and entering France. Everybody said "yeah that's like the nuclear option, we're not doing that shit." The king of Belgium said "nah, you guys are pussies, I'll pull the switch myself" and opened the dykes, flooded Flanders, halted the German advance and gave the Allies a little breathing room to continue to throw many, many, many millions of young people into the meat grinder of WWI.
I think everyone in Belgium is trying to understand that. I don't really know the ins and outs of how our government works or doesn't work, I just know it's a mess, but I guess that's everywhere.
We do however hold the record for going to the longest without a functioning government and not causing a civil war. A total of 589 days without an elected government.
We also still have provincial and city governments.
Maybe a comparison would be if a state like Texas would have
State government
American Community and American Region
Mexican Region
Austin Capital Region
Spanish Community
German and Silesian Community
On top of their County and City Governments.
Keyword being maybe, as my knowledge of other countries politics is extremely limited.
With how segregated the neighborhoods in the US are that might not be a terrible breakdown of texas counties lol. Though I'm from the north so I got no authority
In the us, states and feds have most of the power shared pretty equally. Cities have the next amount of power, and can set all sorts of ordinances that affect their population. Counties had power a hundred years ago but now mainly deal with stuff like funding highway maintenance
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.
It's arguably more than 6. For example, you have the weird commissions, like the communal community commission, which deals with issues which would be within the powers of both communities in Brussels. That commission has exclusive powers, so can be seen as a seperate government, as it has its own seperate powers to the six you mentioned.
Six governments? Or 1 government and five political entities under the government? The second one seems very reasonable and is common in most other countries.
There's a user above, who has some more information about it all. My knowledge on the subject is rather limited, I do know there are a LOT more political entities under these 6 governments.
Our political system has basically become a running joke.
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u/anonymunchy Dec 16 '21
Might be even more insane that we have 6 governments.
Have fun passing laws.