With a few "quick wins" before the 2024 elections, Flanders wants to claim greater autonomy over some key policy issues, said Parliamentary Chair Liesbeth Homans during the 11 July festivities in the Brussels town hall.
After last year's celebrations for the Flemish Holiday had to take place in the botanical garden of Meise in the Flemish Brabant province due to the pandemic, this year the festivities and speeches once again took place in Brussels. The Flemish holiday is traditionally a time when political parties like to make statements about Belgium's state structure.
"The current institutional architecture is not an endpoint," said Homans, who is a member of the Flemish rightwing N-VA party. "But changes to the Constitution will have to wait until 2024 after it has – hopefully – been declared open to revision."
She said that Flanders does not intend to "wait passively until the Constitution can be amended," declaring that "I would like to remind you that the Flemish Parliament started a Working Group on Institutional Affairs at the end of 2020."
'Quick wins'
That working group, Homans stressed, held 32 hearings with 96 specialists on topics such as homogeneous competence packages, the financing and fiscal autonomy of the communities and regions and the state structure and future state model.
"Last week, the activities of the working group were concluded with a debate," she said. "During that debate, a concept note was discussed that provides a number of quick wins that we can achieve within the current constitutional framework."
The quick wins Homans pointed out mainly focus on the powers and competences that Flanders already has: health policy, labour market policy, mobility, energy and foreign policy.
Related News
- Why is the far right so much stronger in Flanders than in Wallonia?
- Far-right Vlaams Belang party wants to declare Flemish sovereignty in 2029
- 'Divide cannot continue': Belgium needs a federal constituency, say Flemish Liberals
"As the Flemish Parliament... we do not sit by idly and wait for the Constitution to be amended," she said. "These quick wins must be implemented before the 2024 elections so that the regions can finally pursue the policies that meet their specific needs."
Homans also addressed other conflicts that she argues deserve Flanders' attention. "I am thinking of the situation of the Uyghurs in China, women's rights in Afghanistan, the violation of LGBTQ+ rights in several countries, the food crisis in West Africa or the almost forgotten conflicts, such as those in Yemen and Nigeria."
