The 18 May 2003 Belgian federal elections were the first Belgian elections to be held under a new electoral code. One of the novelties was an electoral threshold of 5%, which has cost many seats to the N-VA and the Green parties, Ecolo and Agalev. The Belgian Socialists recovered well; the liberal and nationalist parties increased their vote as well.
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe. It is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of 30,688 square kilometres (11,849 sq mi) and has a population of more than 11.4 million. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi and Liège.
A Green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation for world peace. Green party platforms typically embrace social-democratic economic policies and forming coalitions with other left-wing parties. Green parties exist in nearly 90 countries around the world; many are members of Global Greens.
Ecolo is a French-speaking political party in Belgium based on green politics. The party is active in Wallonia, the Brussels-Capital Region, and the German-speaking Community of Belgium.
The Flemish Greens lost all their seats. The Greens were attacked on two fronts: some, including their coalition partners, accused them of being too fundamentalist, while others said that they had betrayed their ideals. The resignation of a Walloon green minister (Isabelle Durant), one week before the elections, probably didn't do them much good either. Although it was predicted in some opinion polls, the gains of the Front National were surprising, considering that it seldom appeared in the media. The most important trend was the recovery of the Flemish social-democrats, led by the popular (some would say populist) Steve Stevaert. The fact that Elio Di Rupo was learning Dutch caused rumours that he hoped to become Prime Minister, if the social-democrats would turn out to be the largest political family.
Steve Stevaert was a Belgian politician of the Flemish Socialist Party: the SP.A.
Elio Di Rupo is a Belgian social-democratic politician who served as the 50th Prime Minister of Belgium from 6 December 2011 to 11 October 2014, and headed the Di Rupo Government. Di Rupo was the first francophone to hold the office since Paul Vanden Boeynants in 1979, and the country's first socialist Prime Minister since Edmond Leburton left office in 1974. He was also Belgium's first Prime Minister of non-Belgian descent, and the world's second openly gay person and first openly gay man to be head of government in modern times.
Dutch(Nederlands) is a West Germanic language spoken by around 23 million people as a first language and 5 million people as a second language, constituting the majority of people in the Netherlands and Belgium. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives English and German.
Themes that probably influenced the election results in some way or another were the government's opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the controversy around the nuisance around the airport of Zaventem, the controversy surrounding the banning of tobacco publicity, and unemployment. But a general dominating theme was lacking.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 20 March 2003 and lasted just over one month, including 21 days of major combat operations, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq. This early stage of the war formally ended on 1 May 2003 when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the "End of Major Combat Operations", after which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was established as the first of several successive transitional governments leading up to the first Iraqi parliamentary election in January 2005. U.S. military forces later remained in Iraq until the withdrawal in 2011.
Brussels Airport is an international airport 6.5 NM northeast of Brussels, the capital of Belgium. In 2018, more than 25 million passengers arrived or departed at Brussels Airport, making it the 24th busiest airport in Europe. It is located partially in Zaventem, partially in the Diegem area of Machelen, and partially in Steenokkerzeel, in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is home to around 260 companies, together directly employing 20,000 people and serves as the home base for Brussels Airlines and TUIfly Belgium.
Notes: 1) The 1999 data are resp. SP instead of SP.A-Spirit, CVP instead of CD&V, PRL-FDF-MCC alliance instead of MR, PSC instead of cdH and VU instead of N-VA.
The 1999 data are resp. SP instead of SPA-S, CVP instead of CD&V, PRL-FDF-MCC alliance instead of MR, PSC instead of cdH and Volksunie instead of N-VA.
West European Politics is a peer-reviewed academic journal of comparative politics focusing on Western Europe. It was established in 1978 and serves as one of the main publication venues in that field. Its founding editors-in-chief were Vincent Wright and Gordon Smith; the current editors are Klaus Goetz, Anand Menon and Wolfgang C. Müller. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2015 impact factor of 1.464, ranking it 36th out of 163 journals in the category "Political Science".
In computing, a Digital Object Identifier or DOI is a persistent identifier or handle used to uniquely identify objects, standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). An implementation of the Handle System, DOIs are in wide use mainly to identify academic, professional, and government information, such as journal articles, research reports and data sets, and official publications though they also have been used to identify other types of information resources, such as commercial videos.
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Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats, commonly known as Open VLD or simply as the VLD, is a conservative-liberal Flemish political party in Belgium. The party was created in 1992 from the former Party for Freedom and Progress (PVV) and politicians from other parties. The party led the government for three cabinets under Guy Verhofstadt from 1999 until March 2008. Open VLD most recently formed the Federal Government with N-VA, CD&V and the Francophone Reformist Movement (MR).
Christian Democratic and Flemish is a Christian democratic Flemish political party in Belgium. The party has historical ties to both trade unionism (ACV) and trade associations (UNIZO) and the Farmer's League. Until 2001, the party was named the Christian People's Party.
Socialist Party Differently is a social-democratic Flemish political party in Belgium. The party, formerly known as the Belgische Socialistische Partij (BSP) 1978–80 and the Socialistische Partij (SP) 1980–2001, emerged from the Belgian Socialist Party linguistic and community split in 1978 which also produced the Parti Socialiste; the Belgian Socialist Party was itself formed by former members of the Belgian Labour Party. From December 2011 to September 2014, sp.a was part of the Di Rupo Government, along with its Francophone counterpart Socialist Party (PS). Sp.a has been part of the Flemish Government several times.
Groen, founded as Agalev, is a green political party in Belgium. Groen is often the smallest Flemish party represented in the federal, regional or European parliament. Its French-speaking equivalent is Ecolo; the two parties maintain close relations with each other.
The New Flemish Alliance is a Flemish nationalist and conservative political party in Belgium, founded in 2001. The N-VA is a regionalist and separatist movement that self-identifies with the promotion of civic nationalism. It is part of the Flemish Movement, and strives for the peaceful and gradual secession of Flanders from Belgium. In recent years it has become the largest party of Flanders as well as of Belgium as a whole, and it participated in the 2014–18 Belgian Government until December 9, 2018.
Belgium is a federal state with a multi-party political system, with numerous parties who factually have no chance of gaining power alone, and therefore must work with each other to form coalition governments.
The European Green Party (EGP), sometimes referred to as European Greens, is the European political party that operates as a federation of political parties across Europe supporting green politics. The EGP cooperates with the European Free Alliance (EFA) to form the Greens–European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) parliamentary group in the European parliament.
Flanders is both a cultural community and an economic region within the Belgian state, and has significant autonomy.
Flemish political parties operate in the whole Flemish Community, which covers the unilingual Flemish Region and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. In the latter, they compete with French-speaking parties that all also operate in Wallonia. There are very few parties that operate on a national level in Belgium. Flanders generally tends to vote for right-wing, conservative parties, whereas in French-speaking Belgium the socialist party is usually the most successful one.
The area within Belgium known as Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde encompasses the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region, which coincides with the arrondissement of Brussels-Capital and the surrounding Dutch-speaking area of Halle-Vilvoorde, which in turn coincides with the arrondissement of Halle-Vilvoorde. Halle-Vilvoorde contains several municipalities with language facilities, i.e. municipalities where French-speaking people form a considerable part of the population and therefore have special language rights.
The Flemish Government is the executive branch of the Flemish Community and the Flemish Region of Belgium. It consists of a government cabinet, headed by the Minister-President and accountable to the Flemish Parliament, and the public administration divided into 13 policy areas, each with an executive department and multiple agencies.
Traffic light coalition is a term originating in German politics where it describes a coalition government of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP), and the Greens. It arises from the fact that the parties' traditional colours, respectively red, yellow, and green, resemble the normal colour sequence of a traffic light (Ampel). It has subsequently been used to describe similar coalitions between social democrats, liberals, and greens in other countries.
Geert Albert Bourgeois is a Belgian is a Belgian politician for the N-VA. Since 25 July 2014, he has been serving as the Minister-President of Flanders. He previously worked as a lawyer at the Kortrijk bar, and served as a member of the Belgian federal parliament for the Volksunie (1995-2001) and for the N-VA (2001-2004).
The 2007 Belgian federal election took place on Sunday 10 June 2007. Voters went to the polls in order to elect new members for the Chamber of Representatives and Senate.
The 2007–2011 Belgian political crisis was a period of tense communal relations and political instability in Belgium rooted in the differing opinions on state reform, and in the continued existence of the controversial electoral district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (BHV). Parties from the Dutch-speaking Flemish Community are in general strongly in favour for a devolution of powers to the communities and regions, and the splitting of the unconstitutional BHV district, while French-speaking French Community of Belgium is generally in favour of retaining the status quo. After the 2010 elections, the topics of public debt, deficit cuts and socio-economic reform were added to the debate, with most Flemish parties in favour of finding money by strongly reducing spending, whilst the proposals supported by most French-speaking parties also included a significant raise in taxes. The crisis came to an end in December 2011 with the inauguration of a new federal government which agreed on partition of the BHV district and on policies aimed at tackling the economic downturn. The country's continuing linguistic divide played a large part in the crisis. Several times during the period Belgium was threatened to be split up amid rising Flemish separatism.
Elections for the Federal Parliament were held in Belgium on 13 June 2010, during the midst of the 2007-11 Belgian political crisis. After the fall of the previous Leterme II Government over the withdrawal of Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats from the government the King dissolved the legislature and called new elections. The New Flemish Alliance, led by Bart De Wever, emerged as the plurality party with 27 seats, just one more than the francophone Socialist Party, led by Elio Di Rupo, which was the largest party in the Wallonia region and Brussels. It took a world record 541 days until a government was formed, resulting in a government led by Di Rupo.
The Di Rupo Government was the federal cabinet of Belgium sworn in on 6 December 2011, after a record-breaking 541 days of negotiations following the June 2010 elections. The government included social democrats (sp.a/PS), Christian democrats (CD&V/cdH) and liberals, respectively of the Dutch and French language groups. The government notably excluded the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the Flemish nationalist party which achieved a plurality and became the largest party. Its absence, together with the unwillingness of Open Vld to enter into an eight-party coalition that included the green parties, caused the government coalition to lack a majority in the Dutch language group. It was the first time that the Belgian prime minister had been openly gay, as Di Rupo became the world's first male openly gay head of government. Elio Di Rupo became the first native French-speaking prime minister since 1979 and the first prime minister from Wallonia since 1974 and first socialist prime minister since 1974.
Federal elections were held in Belgium on 25 May 2014. All 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives were elected, whereas the Senate was no longer directly elected following the 2011–2012 state reform. These were the first elections held under King Philippe's reign.
The 2019 Belgian regional elections will take place on Sunday 26 May, the same day as the 2019 European Parliament election as well as the Belgian federal election unless snap federal elections are called.
