In 2024, the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) and Flemish Interest (VB) secured 24 and 20 seats in the federal Chamber of Representatives, respectively, becoming the two largest parties by number of seats. Both parties have actively campaigned for increased Flemish autonomy and eventual independence, a cause which around 37% of Flemish voters support. The N-VA has advocated for a confederal model where Wallonia and Flanders, the two largest regions of Belgium, would become largely self-governing; the confederal government would only be able to legislate and create confederation-wide policies in areas previously agreed upon by the two regions. By contrast, the VB has advocated for an independent Flemish state and the dissolution of Belgium. Both parties point to several justifications for their proposals, such as a study indicating that 6.29 billion euros in government spending are redistributed from Flanders to Wallonia and the Brussels capital region on a yearly basis. Another of their primary arguments, however, is entirely political: specifically, that Belgium suffers from a democratic deficit problem in which the Belgian federal system prevents Flemish citizens from being adequately represented.
Many argue that the European Union also suffers from a democratic deficit problem, contending that the governmental structure of the European Union prevents citizens from participating in decisions in a meaningful manner. The debate on resolving this problem—or whether any such democratic deficit is even a problem at all—is decades old, and the European Union has taken steps to improve and encourage direct participation from citizens. For instance, over 700,000 individuals participated in the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), a citizen-led collection of panel discussions tasked with producing recommendations for concrete policies, and produced 49 proposals and over 300 associated measures on topics ranging from food waste prevention to the structure of the European Union. One of these proposals called for a permanent Citizens’ Assembly to be established whose members would be randomly selected and whose task would be to deliberate and advise the other EU institutions on EU policy. Proponents for the Assembly point to the success of similar institutions in the past, such as resolving the thorny debates regarding abortion and same-sex marriage in Ireland. Yet the success of the N-VA and the VB in Belgium, and Belgium’s own democratic deficit problem, offers a potential lesson for those who may believe that the Assembly and similar institutions can resolve the European Union’s democratic deficit problem: creating institutions based on citizen participation will not resolve democratic deficit unless a strong and distinct “EU citizen-identity” is created first.
THE BELGIAN DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT PROBLEM
The roots of Belgium’s democratic deficit problem trace back to its independence from the United Netherlands in 1831, which brought Wallonia and Flanders into a single state. Wallonia was very prosperous and highly industrialized at the time of independence, being second only to Great Britain in terms of industrialization, and initially dominated its union with Flanders. Following the Second World War, however, Flanders benefited from foreign investment, while the Walloon industrial economy slowly collapsed. Besides their economies, the two regions are split by a cultural and linguistic divide: the citizens of Flanders also primarily speak Flemish, while the citizens of Wallonia and the city of Brussels primarily speak French, except for a small German-speaking enclave in eastern Wallonia. This divide makes itself felt throughout all of society, with all political parties, universities, television channels, and even football teams having their Flemish and French halves. These differences lead to the two regions voting differently in regional and country-wide elections: Flanders has generally favored conservative parties, while Wallonia has generally favored liberal parties. These parties, once elected, often find it difficult to form governments or create country-wide policies that might satisfy both Flanders and Wallonia, resulting in dissatisfaction among citizens in both regions. The leader of the N-VA goes as far as to describe Belgium as a country of “two different democracies,” whose constituent halves exist as two quasi-states conjoined by a conflicted and deadlocked federal government.
The Belgian federal government has sought to resolve the democratic deficit problem through a series of six state reforms, the first of which established three “cultural communities” for the Flemish, French, and German-speaking populations of Belgium. These communities had their own parliaments and governments, and were intended to provide economic and cultural autonomy to their residents. The third and fourth state reforms transformed Belgium into a federal state, where the communities and the overarching regions—Wallonia and Flanders—received additional powers. These state reforms have had the effect of producing regional governmental structures where Belgian citizens can elect individuals who reflect their political and cultural identities. The structure and composition of the federal government features similar attempts to produce a governmental structure which mirrors the political and cultural identity of its citizens; each community and regional parliament, for example, elects a certain number of senators to the Senate, with a portion of senators then being elected based on the election results for the Chamber of Representatives. Similarly, the Chamber of Representatives, which along with the Senate forms the Belgian legislature, is elected by the D’Hondt proportional representation system, and categorizes its members into “language groups.” Yet despite these efforts to produce a federal government that mirrors the identities of its constituents, the deadlock created by governments composed of diametrically opposed politicians and political parties with drastically different visions has some Belgian politicians wishing for a “winner-take-all” democratic system similar to the American election model.
THE EUROPEAN UNION DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT PROBLEM
The roots of the European Union’s democratic deficit problem also trace back to its creation as the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSE). The ECSE featured the Common Assembly, an advisory body with limited powers composed of individuals appointed from the legislatures of the member states, which served as the representative institution of the people and provided democratic legitimacy to the ECSE. The Common Assembly eventually evolved into the European Parliament, gaining more powers over the years to affect legislation and policymaking, and growing more into its role as the representative and representation of the people. In 1979, Europeans were able to directly vote for the members of the European Parliament for the first time. The Treaty of Lisbon, which came into effect in 2009, expanded the powers of the European Parliament, including altering legislative procedures to require approval from the European Parliament for all EU legislation. Yet the European Parliament cannot propose legislation in the same way that national parliaments may; the European Parliament may only approve or reject legislative proposals, or propose amendments to proposal before it. On certain matters, such as taxation, the European Parliament is only empowered to give an advisory opinion on a proposal; the Council of the European Union may then decide on the proposal once the European Parliament has given its advisory opinion, even if the final decision conflicts with what the European Parliament advised.
The European Union has attempted to resolve its democratic deficit problem by introducing citizen-led initiatives and encouraging direct participation in proposal creation, such as the CoFoE. However, Belgium’s example suggests that these initiatives and efforts may be insufficient.
LEARNING FROM BELGIUM
Belgium’s case suggests that merely designing governmental institutions to mirror the political and cultural identity of a state’s constituents is insufficient to resolve democratic deficit. Instead, the problem may reside in a lack of Belgian identity: Belgians freely acknowledge their lack of a clear national identity, and the distinct cultures and histories of Flanders and Wallonia have produced a country whose two halves are happy to co-exist, but not meaningfully abandon their regional differences in favor of a unified identity. Their voting patterns not only reflect these regional differences, but also the pervasiveness of a region-centric perspective over a state-wide perspective on politics. The European Union is in the same predicament as Belgium, but on a grander scale, being composed of 27 member states. Additionally, individuals living in the European Union suffer from a lack of clear EU citizen-identity, with 73% of EU citizens agreeing that their national identities are most important to them, and over 40% of EU citizens either noncommittal or not identifying themselves as European. The firmly entrenched histories and cultures of each member state of the European Union, along with the youth of the European Union and its unique nature in political history, make it difficult to establish a firm EU citizen-identity separate from national identities. Yet if the case of Belgium shows anything, it is that merely creating new institutions to allow citizens to represent themselves will not fully resolve democratic deficit, but instead create deadlock and frustration as voters rely on these institutions from nation-centric perspectives, rather than from an EU-centric perspective: instead, the European Union must work on fostering an EU citizen-identity before it can create new and empowered democratic institutions in order to resolve its democratic deficit problem once and for all.