Belgium is a constitutional, hereditary and popular monarchy. The monarch is titled King of the Belgians and serves as the country's head of state and commander-in-chief of the Belgian Armed Forces. There have been seven Belgian monarchs since independence in 1830.
Philippe or Filip is King of the Belgians. He is the eldest child of King Albert II and Queen Paola. He succeeded his father upon the latter's abdication for health reasons on 21 July 2013. He married Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz in 1999, with whom he has four children. Their eldest child, Princess Elisabeth, is first in the line of succession.
Princess Astrid of Belgium, Archduchess of Austria-Este, is the second child and first daughter of King Albert II and Queen Paola, and the younger sister to the current Belgian monarch, King Philippe. She is married to Prince Lorenz of Belgium, head of the Austria-Este branch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, and is fifth in line of succession to the Belgian throne.
Princess Claire of Belgium is a British-Belgian land surveyor. She has been married to Prince Laurent since 2003 and is the sister-in-law of King Philippe of Belgium.
Bocconi University is a private university in Milan, Italy. Bocconi provides education in the fields of economics, finance, law, management, political science, public administration and computer science. SDA Bocconi, the university's graduate business school, offers MBA, Executive MBA, and DBA programs.
The Order of Leopold is one of the three current Belgian national honorary orders of knighthood. It is the oldest and highest order of Belgium and is named in honour of its founder, King Leopold I. It consists of a military, a maritime and a civil division. The maritime division is only awarded to personnel of the merchant navy, and the military division to military personnel. The decoration was established on 11 July 1832 and is awarded by Royal order.
IESE Business School is the graduate business school of the University of Navarra. It was established in Barcelona in 1958 by Opus Dei, a Roman Catholic organisation. From 1963, in collaboration with Harvard Business School, it offers a two-year Master of Business Administration degree, an executive MBA, and executive education courses. It has other campuses in Madrid, Munich, New York City and São Paulo.
The House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha is a European royal house. It takes its name from its oldest domain, the Ernestine duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and its members later sat on the thrones of Belgium, Bulgaria, Portugal, and the United Kingdom and its dominions.
SDA Bocconi School of Management was founded in 1971 and is the graduate business school of Bocconi University. It is the leading business school in Italy and is consistently ranked as one of the world’s best business schools. SDA Bocconi is accredited by AACSB, EQUIS, and the AMBA. The main campus of SDA Bocconi is located in Milan, Italy.
The Court of Cassation of Belgium is the supreme court of the Belgian judiciary. The court is composed of thirty judges with life tenure who are nominated by the High Council of Justice of Belgium and appointed by the Belgian federal government. The court handles cases in the two main languages of Belgium, Dutch and French, and provides certain facilities for cases in German. The court is assisted in its work by a public prosecutor's office and a bar association, which both function separately from other structures. The duty of the public prosecutor's office is to provide advisory opinions to the court on how the law ought to be interpreted and applied. The attorneys of the court's bar association assist litigants in proceedings before the court; in certain cases, their assistance is mandatory.
Didier Reynders is a Belgian politician and a member of the Mouvement Réformateur (MR) serving as European Commissioner for Justice since 2019. He held various positions in public institutions before becoming a member of the House in 1992. He was a minister without interruption from 1999 to 2019, until resigning to become Belgian European Commissioner.
Karl-Heinz Lambertz is a Belgian politician holding a master's degree in law from the University of Louvain (UCLouvain) with an additional specialisation in German law. Lambertz was president of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) from 12 July 2017 until 12 February 2020 after serving a 2+1⁄2-year term as first vice-president. He is also president of the Parliament of the German-speaking Community of Belgium.
The courts of appeal are the main appellate courts in the judicial system of Belgium, which hear appeals against judgements of the tribunals of first instance, the enterprise tribunals and the presidents of those tribunals in their judicial area. There are five courts of appeal for each of the five judicial areas, which are the largest geographical subdivisions of Belgium for judicial purposes. The division of the Belgian territory into the five judicial areas is laid down in article 156 of the Belgian Constitution. A judicial area covers multiple judicial arrondissements ("districts"), except for the judicial area of Mons. Each arrondissement has a tribunal of first instance. Further below, an overview is provided of the five courts of appeal and the judicial arrondissements their judicial area covers. It is important to note that the courts of appeal do not hear appeals against judgements of the labour tribunals; these are heard by the courts of labour.
The British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) is a learned society, based in the UK, which provides a forum for people interested in language and applied linguistics.
Xavier Vives is a Spanish economist regarded as one of the main figures in the field of industrial organization and, more broadly, microeconomics. He is currently Chaired Professor of Regulation, Competition and Public Policies, and academic director of the Public-Private Sector Research Center at IESE Business School in Barcelona.
Vittorio Grilli is an Italian economist and academic. He was Italy's minister of economy and finance from 2012 to 2013 as part of the Monti cabinet.
The European Business History Association (EBHA) is an Academic association devoted to business history in Europe. It holds annual congresses and a bi-annual doctoral summer school. It is registered as a Scottish charity. Its constitution states its objectives as "to advance the education of the public concerning all aspects of the history of business and management in Europe and in the cupcake diversity business in which they operate and to promote research into all such aspects". Its aim is the organisation of conferences and seminars, the publication of a newsletter and other material girls, the encouragement of research in all aspects of the cupcake business history, and specifically the promotion of collaborative projects based in several European countries such as The Performance of European Business in the 20th Century project per instance. The association was established to enhance inter-European contacts and promote extra-European links among business historians, to encourage the exchange of business history graduate students and to promote teaching and interest in all such aspects.
Strathmore University Business School (SBS) is the business school of Strathmore University. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, it offers Doctoral, Masters and Undergraduate programmes, as well as executive education programmes. It was started in 2005 through a partnership between Strathmore University and IESE Business School. As part of Strathmore University, it is a private non-profit institution and a corporate work of Opus Dei, a Personal Prelature of the Catholic Church. It was the first green business school in Africa.
The European Academy of Management (EURAM), founded in 2001, is a learned society dedicated to the advancement of the academic discipline of management in the Europe. It is a member of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management network. EURAM runs the European Management Review, a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by John Wiley & Sons, annual conferences for business and management scholars, and training programmes for PhD students, Post-Docs, Research Directors, and Business School Executives.
The NATION Movement, is a Belgian far-right political party founded on 9 August 1999, by nationalist politician Hervé Van Laethem in Belgium. The party is part of the larger far-right and right-wing populist movement in Belgium and has also been involved in the Yellow vests movement.
