To all those who expressed interest in the Re-Bel initiative:

It is our pleasure to announce our next online public event to be held on Tuesday the 8th of June from 12.15pm to 13.45 pm on the question of whether federal legislation should be granted supremacy over legislations by the regions and the communities.

The webinar will be held in Dutch and French and, thanks to the University Foundation and to volunteer students from the KULeuven and the UCLouvain, benefit from simultaneous translation. Details can be found below. Prior registration is indispensable.

We remind you that the recordings of our previous webinars are all available on our website, including the latest one, "Towards a Belgium with four regions?", with the participation of André Alen, Sven Gatz, Paul Magnette, Céline Romainville and Willem Sas.

Best wishes,

Paul De Grauwe and Philippe Van Parijs,
coordinators of the Re-Bel initiative

Tuesday 8 June 2021, 12.15-1.45 pm

Primauté au fédéral? Voorrang voor het federale niveau?
Must federal legislation trump regional legislation?

Belgium's current federal structure aims to facilitate policy making by allocating exclusive competences to the federal government and parliament on the one hand and to the governments and parliaments of Belgium’s regions and communities on the other. Both levels are sovereign in their respective domains. There is no hierarchy that confers primacy to federal legislation over regional and community legislation, in contrast, for example, with Germany’s federal system, where Bundesrecht bricht Landesrecht is one of the guiding principles.
However, the measures necessitated by the pandemic, the need to honour EU-level commitments on the climate and the controversies over Brussels’ air traffic noise norms and congestion charges led many to question the wisdom of dispensing with such a federal primacy principle. To avoid confusion, delays and blockages, would it make sense to allow the federal level to coordinate regional action, issue binding policy guidelines or even overrule regional and community legislation? In other words, should Belgium establish some form of hierarchy between the federal level and the regional level, possibly under specific conditions, such as emergency situations or the risk of failing to comply with European obligations? Or would this amount to depriving the regions and communities of some of their autonomy without any significant gain in the efficiency of policy making?

Language regime: Dutch and French (with simultaneous translation)
Moderation : Béatrice DELVAUX (Le Soir) & Karel VERHOEVEN (De Standaard)
Welcoming: Philippe VAN PARIJS (Re-Bel & UCLouvain)
Introduction: Gwendolyn RUTTEN (Open VLD)
Challenges: Johanne POIRIER (McGill University, Montreal), Patricia POPELIER (UAntwerpen), Marc UYTTENDAELE (ULB)
General discussion
Concluding comments: Paul DE GRAUWE (Re-Bel & LSE)

Prior registration is indispensable. A zoom link will be sent to all those registered shorty before the event.