INTRODUCTION
Five successive state reforms, in 1970–71, 1980, 1988, 1993, and 2001, have transformed the formerly unitary but territorially decentralised Belgian state into a federal entity. This transformation is expressly acknowledged in the Belgian Constitution.
Following the constitutional reform of 5 May 1993, Title I of the constitution is now entitled “Federal Belgium, Its Composition and Territory.” According to Article 1 of the Constitution, Belgium is “a federal state, composed of communities and regions.”This progressive transformation from a unitary to a federal state makes clear that federalisation in Belgium is essentially devolutionary. In most federal states, previously independent or confederal entities transfer certain powers to a newly created central government (integrative federalism). In Belgium, on the other hand, the process of federalisation started at the central level, devolving powers to the communities and the regions (devolutionary federalism).
The devolutionary nature of Belgian federalisation helps to explain several typical aspects of the relationship between the federal and the federated authorities: (1) the powers of the communities and the regions are (still) enumerated, while the centre holds residual powers; (2) the option exists in principle for exclusive powers of the federal government, the communities, and the regions; and (iii) there is no hierarchy between federal, community, and regional legislation. In federal states of the integrative variety, on the contrary, the member states in general have residual powers, while the federal government holds only enumerated powers (see, however, the Canadian case, in which the centre has residual powers). The technique of concurrent powers is also more dominant, together with the principle of federal supremacy.
Under Belgian constitutional law as it currently stands, the communities and regions do not have constitutional autonomy.
However, this has not been an obstacle to the asymmetrical development of community and regional institutions that take into account the political particularities of the communities and the regions. The absence of constitutional autonomy has also not prevented the three major communities and regions (i.e., the Flemish Community, the French Community, and the Walloon Region) from obtaining some, albeit limited, institutional autonomy or so-called constitutive autonomy and, therefore, the power to enact specific rules with respect to the composition and functioning of their own institutions.There is a strong political will in Flanders to have the constitutional division of powers thoroughly reviewed during a new state reform. Pursuant to this reform, the federal government would have only enumerated powers, while residual powers would be shifted to the communities and/or the regions. The French-speaking political parties, however, strongly oppose such a Copernican revolution, fearing that it would endanger the continued existence of the Belgian state, as well as financial and social solidarity between the communities and the regions.