LUISA DOMENICHELLI

Federalismo e recenti sviluppi della forma di governo in Belgio

N. 173

Summary — The Belgian Constitutional revision of 1993 concluded a twenty year long process toward the achievement of a federal structure. The author describes the most important steps of this process, noting its political and historical reasons. Then she analyses the contents of the revision, underlining its amplitude and its qualitative differences compared to the former reforms. According to the author’s point of view, the attribution to the federal entities of a self-determination power, limited but constitutionally guaranteed, lead to include Belgium into the category of Federal States, as well as the rationalisation of the system of distribution of competences between Federal State and its components and the direct election of representative institutions of Communities and Regions; even if the peculiarity of the bicameral system and the remaining of the traditional centralistic settlement make it a "sui generis" model. Particular attention is given to the pattern of government’s mechanisms of rationalisation introduced with the constitutional revision of 1993, which are analysed in the light of the Belgian parliamentary tradition and of contemporary European experiences.