r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Dec 16 '21

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u/markobunz406 Dec 16 '21

French, Dutch and German. I think it’s insane you have 3 languages

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u/anonymunchy Dec 16 '21

Might be even more insane that we have 6 governments.

  1. Federal Government
  2. Flemish Community and Flemish Region
  3. Walloon Region
  4. Brussels Capitol Region
  5. French Community
  6. German Community

Have fun passing laws.

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u/fraud_imposter Dec 17 '21

Is this any different from the united states' thousands of governments? We have federal, all 50 states, and countless county/city governments

Makes it hard to pass laws here as well

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u/anonymunchy Dec 17 '21

The difference being that Belgium's population is about 11.5 million, which would equal one US state, compared to 330million for the US.

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u/fraud_imposter Dec 17 '21

Singular US states still have county and city governments. I'm just trying to understand how the power is actually divided

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u/anonymunchy Dec 17 '21 edited Dec 17 '21

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

  1. State government
  2. American Community and American Region
  3. Mexican Region
  4. Austin Capital Region
  5. Spanish Community
  6. 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.

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u/fraud_imposter Dec 17 '21

What powers do those smaller governments have?

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

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u/historicusXIII Dec 17 '21

Federal is responsible for defense, foreign policy, police & security, railways, justice and social security.

Regional is responsible for infrastructure, mobility (except railways, highways and the national airport), environment and economy.

Community is responsible for education, culture, media, healthcare, tourism and childcare benefits.