The last edition was perhaps too quick to dismiss Belgian politics as boring. It is actually far from it, at least if your fancy is tickled by arcane federated power sharing agreements along linguistic lines and civilized parliamentary gridlock all wrapped up in a constitutional monarchy.
Who needs a government anyway? - What do Belgium and US-American libertarians have in common? A belief that governments are at best optional (and perhaps also an unhealthy appreciation of fried potatoes). This is certainly odd given that Belgium hosts the political heart of the European Union. But then again, maybe fitting.
The NGO Freedom House describes Belgium as a "stable electoral democracy with a long record of peaceful transfers of power" (Link). While this is certainly true, the devil lies in the frequency of those power transfers and their success (or lack thereof). Over the past 15 years, a Belgian government has lasted on average 2.1 years and in 2020, Belgium even managed to break its own record for not having a government at all - 592 days (Link). Since 2007, Belgium has spent a total of 3.6 years (or 24%) without a government.
What could possibly go wrong? - The creation of Belgium in 1830 put two major linguistic and cultural groups into a single country - Flemish in the north and French in the south (plus a few Germans for good measure in case the French were not annoyed enough already). The constitutional reaction to this was ever-increasing federalization.
Today, there are no national political parties, just Flemish and Francophone versions of e.g., liberals, socialists or conservatives (effectively doubling the total number of parties in the parliament). Each linguistic region runs its own election for the federal government and the final outcomes are just combined at the end. Adding a demographic imbalance (60% Flemish, 30% Francophone, 10% German and others) and economic disparity (more wealth concentrated in the Flemish regions), political compromises take long to reach.
2019 Belgium federal election results
Six more parliaments - Ironically, it is precisely the strong federalization that seems to carry Belgium through times of vacuum at the top. In additional to the federal government, there are governments for each of the three language communities (Flemish, French, and German) and also for its three regions (Flanders, Walloon, and Brussels). Of course, this makes life more complicated but a country hosting the EU parliament should consider itself well-prepared.