Flemish Brabant is a province of Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. It borders on the Belgian provinces of Antwerp, Limburg, Liège, Walloon Brabant, Hainaut and East Flanders. Flemish Brabant also surrounds the Brussels-Capital Region. Its capital is Leuven. It has an area of 2,118 km2 (818 sq mi) which is divided into two administrative districts containing 65 municipalities. As of January 2019, Flemish Brabant had a population of 1,146,175.
Groen, founded as Agalev, is a green Flemish political party in Belgium. The main pillars of the party are social justice, human rights, and ecologism. Its French-speaking equivalent is Ecolo; the two parties maintain close relations with each other.
The Federal Parliament is the bicameral parliament of Belgium. It consists of the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate. It sits in the Palace of the Nation. The Chamber of Representatives is the primary legislative body; the Senate functions only as a meeting place of the federal communities and regions.
Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde is a judicial arrondissement encompasses the bilingual—French and Dutch—Brussels-Capital Region, which coincides with the administrative arrondissement of Brussels-Capital and the surrounding Dutch-speaking area of Halle-Vilvoorde, which in turn coincides with the administrative 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 arrondissment is the location of a tribunal of first instance, enterprise tribunal and a labour tribunal.
The Dutch-speaking electoral college is one of three constituencies of the European Parliament in Belgium. It currently elects 12 MEPs using the D'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation. Previously it elected 13 MEPS, until the 2013 accession of Croatia. Before that, it elected 14 MEPs, until the 2007 accession of Bulgaria and Romania.
Federal elections were held in Belgium on 10 June 2007. Voters went to the polls in order to elect new members for the Chamber of Representatives and Senate.
The Tihange Nuclear Power Station is one of two nuclear energy power plants in Belgium and contains three nuclear reactors. The site is located on the bank of the Meuse river, near the village of Tihange in the Walloon province of Liège. The station is operated and majority-owned by vertically-integrated Belgian energy corporation Electrabel. EDF Luminus has a 50% stake in the oldest unit and a 10% stake in the two newest units. It employs 1074 workers and covers an area of 75 hectares. The plant represents about 15% of Belgium's total electricity production capacity. Nuclear energy typically provides between 40%-50% of Belgium's domestically-generated electricity. In order to extend the lifetime of Tihange 3, the operator will receive subsidies through a Contract of Difference arrangement.
Federal elections 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.
Meyrem Almaci is a Belgian politician from Flanders and member of the ecological party Groen. On 10 June 2007, she was elected to the Belgian Chamber of Representatives for the first time. She was re-elected in 2010 and in 2014 when she also became the president of Groen. In 2019 she left the Belgian parliament and was elected in the Flemish Parliament.
Following the Belgian general election held on 13 June 2010, a process of cabinet formation started in Belgium. The election produced a very fragmented political landscape, with 11 parties elected to the Chamber of Representatives, none of which won more than 20% of the seats. The Flemish-Nationalist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the largest party in Flanders and the country as a whole, controlled 27 of 150 seats in the lower chamber. The Francophone Socialist Party (PS), the largest in Wallonia, controlled 26 seats. Cabinet negotiations continued for a long time. On 1 June 2011, Belgium matched the record for time taken to form a new democratic government after an election, at 353 days, held until then by Cambodia in 2003–2004. On 11 October 2011, the final agreement for institutional reform was presented to the media. A government coalition was named on 5 December 2011 and sworn in after a total of 541 days of negotiations and formation on 6 December 2011, and 589 days without an elected government with Elio Di Rupo named Prime Minister of the Di Rupo I Government.
Nadia Sminate is a Belgian politician and is affiliated to the N-VA. She was elected as a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives in 2010.
Belgium has two nuclear power plants operating with a net capacity of 5,761 MWe. Electricity consumption in Belgium has increased slowly since 1990 and in 2016 nuclear power provided 51.3%, 41 TWh per year, of the country's electricity.
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 also 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.
The sixth state reform in the federal kingdom of Belgium is the result after the 2010–2011 Belgian government formation, with 541 days of negotiations, the longest ever in Belgium and possibly the world. The agreement was made among the Christian-democratic CD&V and cdH, social-democratic sp.a and PS, liberal Open Vld and MR and ecologist Groen! and Ecolo, each respectively a Flemish and French-speaking party. The first six parties, therefore not including the green parties, then formed the Di Rupo I Government. The Flemish nationalist party New Flemish Alliance, which became the largest after the 2010 elections, was notably not part of the agreement nor of the government coalition.
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.
Brussels is one of the 11 multi-member constituencies of the Chamber of Representatives, the lower house of the Belgian Federal Parliament, the national legislature of Belgium. The constituency was established in 2014 following the Sixth Belgian state reform. It is conterminous with the region of Brussels. The constituency currently elects 15 of the 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives using the open party-list proportional representation electoral system. At the 2019 federal election the constituency had 623,162 registered electors.
East Flanders is one of the 11 multi-member constituencies of the Chamber of Representatives, the lower house of the Belgian Federal Parliament, the national legislature of Belgium. The constituency was established in 2003 following the re-organisation of constituencies across Belgium along provincial lines. It is conterminous with the province of East Flanders. The constituency currently elects 20 of the 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives using the open party-list proportional representation electoral system. At the 2019 federal election the constituency had 1,155,734 registered electors.
Maria Vindevoghel is a Belgian shop steward in the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions and politician of the Workers' Party of Belgium.
Elke Van den Brandt is a Belgian green politician and a member of Groen. She has been the Minister of Mobility, Public Works, and Road Safety within the Brussels-Capital Region government since July 18, 2019.
Nadia Naji is a Belgian politician and co-president of Groen together with Jeremie Vaneeckhout.
