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Are you tired of tired of your country’s government never working the way it’s supposed
to?
You’ve tried everything: voting, protesting, posting angry memes, and yelling at strangers
on the internet, but things still don’t ever seem to turn out how you want?
Well then you should try…
Belgium, the country with no government at all!
Located conveniently between charming, snail-eating France, not-fascist-anymore Germany, weed-friendly
the Netherlands, and whatever the hell Luxembourg is, Belgium has all the advantages of being
a country without any of that pesky government to get in the way!
Just think what you’ll be able to do when there aren’t any laws at all—you can drive
as fast as you want, never pay taxes, and put out hits on all the commenters who called
you a—wait a minute.
I’m getting word that there are still laws and stuff in Belgium.
But why… uh huh.
Uh huuuuh.
Caretaker government, what’s…uh huh.
How many waffles?
Oh wow.
Okay got it.
Alright guys, so it turns out that even though Belgium doesn’t technically have a government,
it still has, like, a government.
I’ll explain, I guess.
So, technically, Belgium is a constitutional monarchy, which means formally, executive
power is held by this guy, Philippe—but like most modern non-Saudia Arabian and non-Burger
monarchs, Phillipe rules Belgium the same way Mickey Mouse rules Disneyworld: as a mostly
powerless figurehead.
Everyone knows the real power in Disneyworld is Clarabelle the Cow, and the real power
in Belgium is the 150-seat Chamber of Representatives.
In order to have a functional government, 76 of the 150 seats in the Chamber must agree
to form a governing coalition, so they can then do all the classic government stuff—appoint
ministers, pass new budgets, pass new laws, oppress the proletariat, and serve as the
collective man that we collectively must stick it to.
But, in Belgium, forming a government can be almost as difficult as explaining in a
5-minute YouTube video why it’s so difficult to form a Belgian government.
To that end, before we move on, you need to know that Belgium has two distinct regions,
each with a different people, different language and a different, very silly-sounding name:
the Walloons live in Wallonia and speak French, and the Flemish live in Flanders and speak
Dutch.
There’s also a few people here who speak German, but much like Belgium does, we’ll
pretend they don’t exist.
The political scene is fractured along the lines of the language communities, which had
led to there being two sets of each type of party.
There’s a French-speaking socialist party, and a Dutch-speaking socialist party, a French-speaking
liberal party, a Dutch-speaking liberal party, etc.
The point is, because things are so fractured, Belgium has 12 parties that hold elected seats,
none of which hold more than 25 of the 150, meaning that to form a governing majority,
you have to get members from at least four parties to come together.
So here’s what happened: in 2018, Belgium did have a government, led by prime minister
and discount Stanley Tucci, Charles Michel.
He had put together a center-right coalition between his liberal French-speaking party,
and the Flemish conversative, Christian, and nationalist parties—but then the Flemish
nationalist party left his coalition over a dispute over immigration police because…
you know, nationalism, which meant no more majority, which meant no more government,
which also meant no more prime minister Charles Michel, who actually could have stayed but
left after he was offered a job as president of the EU’s European Council, which is cooler
and more prestigious and comes with this invisible pet monkey, and there’s been no Belgian
government since.
So, you may ask, if Belgium has had no government for over 600 days, what’s going on?
Is there chaos?
Anarchy?
Crime running rampant, cats marrying dogs, adults eating kid’s meals?
Well, mostly, everything is… normal.
You see, all the laws currently on the books still apply, so the bureaucracy of the state—stuff
like public schools, courts, public transportation—are all still happening as usual.
Funding is handled by essentially continuing the budget from the previous year.
Basically, everything just stays exactly the same.
Politically, this is all overseen by what’s called a caretaker government, which is led
by Sophie Wilmes, of the liberal French-speaking Reformist party, who serves as a super-limited
prime minister, basically just making sure everything doesn’t fall apart while the
parties sort out a new coalition.
Wilmes has the power to do basic bureaucratic oversight, but without a governing majority
she can’t pass any new legislation, appoint new officials, handle the budget deficit,
or even fund the acquisition of another invisible pet monkey.
By and large, though, the Belgian people don’t really seem to care that they don’t have
a government.
There was even an election in May of 2019 to try to sort things out, but it mostly just
gave more seats to members of a super far-right party, which, as history has shown, is always
a super cool thing to do that has no bad consequences.
Things did change, though, in March of 2020, when something called the conoravinrus or
something hit.
Wait, there’s a virus going around?
Why isn’t the media covering this?
Typical.
Anyways, this Coors Light virus required Wilmes to be given more power, so 10 of the 12 major
parties came together to grant her special emergency powers for three months, allowing
her to take actions without the approval of the Chamber.
Doing this meant forming what’s called a minority government, which is sort of a government
but also sort of isn’t, and either way, those powers expired in June, which put the
Belgians back where they started.
On August 3, Belgium set the world record for longest time without a government, at
591 days, beating out the previous record held by Belgium’s bitter rival, also Belgium,
who had gone 590 days without a government from 2010 to 2011.
With each passing day, that new record continues to be extended, while the country of Belgium
waffles on what to do next.
I don’t know how to solve Belgium’s non-government crisis, but maybe I don’t have to.
Maybe someone could develop some complex algorithm that could sort out the whole thing—which,
I’m assured, is very possible—and maybe that person could be you, because you learned
how to write algorithms by using Brilliant.
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