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Historically, Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries , a somewhat larger region than the current Benelux group of states that also included parts of northern France and western Germany. The country emerged in following the Belgian Revolution , when it seceded from the Netherlands. Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution [15] [16] and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms , resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from to Despite the reforms, tensions between the groups have remained, if not increased; there is significant separatism particularly among the Flemish ; controversial language laws exist such as the municipalities with language facilities ; [18] and the formation of a coalition government took 18 months following the June federal election , a world record.
Belgium is one of the six founding countries of the European Union and its capital, Brussels, hosts the official seats of the European Commission , the Council of the European Union , and the European Council , as well as one of two seats of the European Parliament the other being Strasbourg. Brussels hosts the headquarters of many major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is a developed country , with an advanced high-income economy. It has very high standards of living , quality of life , [21] healthcare , [22] education , [23] and is categorized as "very high" in the Human Development Index.
The Belgae were the inhabitants of the northernmost part of Gaul , which was significantly bigger than modern Belgium. Caesar used the word " Belgium " once, to refer to their region. Gallia Belgica , as it was more commonly called, became a Roman province as a result of his conquests. Areas closer to the Rhine frontier, including the eastern part of modern Belgium, eventually became part of the province of Germania Inferior , which interacted with Germanic tribes outside the empire.
At the time when central government collapsed in the Western Roman Empire , both these provinces were inhabited by a mix of Frankish tribes and a more Romanized population. During the 5th century the area came under the rule of the Frankish Merovingian kings, who were probably first established in what is northern France.
During the 8th century the kingdom of the Franks evolved and became the Carolingian Empire.
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The Treaty of Verdun in divided the Carolingian empire into three kingdoms, whose borders had a lasting impact on medieval political boundaries. Most of modern Belgium was in the Middle Kingdom , later known as Lotharingia. Only the coastal county of Flanders became part of West Francia , the predecessor of France. In in the Treaty of Meerssen , modern Belgium lands all became part of the western kingdom, and in in the Treaty of Ribemont , Lotharingia came under the lasting control of the Holy Roman Emperor , but the lordships and bishoprics along the "March" frontier between the two great kingdoms maintained important connections between each other.
In the 13th and 14th the cloth industry and commerce boomed in the County of Flanders and it became one of the richest areas in Europe.
This prosperity played a role in conflicts between Flanders and the king of France which most famously involved the Battle of the Golden Spurs. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish Spanish Netherlands and the Austrian Habsburgs Austrian Netherlands and comprised most of modern Belgium.
This was the theatre of several more protracted conflicts during much of the 17th and 18th centuries involving France, including the Franco-Dutch War — , the Nine Years' War — , the War of the Spanish Succession — , and part of the War of the Austrian Succession — The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in , after the abdication of Napoleon. In , the Belgian Revolution led to the separation of the Southern Provinces from the Netherlands and to the establishment of a Catholic and bourgeois, officially French-speaking and neutral, independent Belgium under a provisional government and a national congress.
The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party and the Liberal Party , with the Belgian Labour Party emerging towards the end of the 19th century.
French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie. It progressively lost its overall importance as Dutch became recognized as well. This recognition became official in , and in , the parliament accepted a Dutch version of the Constitution.
The opening months of the war were known as the Rape of Belgium due to German excesses. Belgium assumed control of the German colonies of Ruanda-Urundi modern-day Rwanda and Burundi during the war, and in the League of Nations mandated them to Belgium. In the aftermath of the First World War, Belgium annexed the Prussian districts of Eupen and Malmedy in , thereby causing the presence of a German-speaking minority. German forces again invaded the country in May , and 40, Belgians, over half of them Jews, were killed during the subsequent occupation and The Holocaust.
From September to February the Allies liberated Belgium. The latter has now become the European Union, for which Belgium hosts major administrations and institutions, including the European Commission , the Council of the European Union and the extraordinary and committee sessions of the European Parliament.
However, when the country's statistics were measured in , a new calculation method was used. Belgium has three main geographical regions; the coastal plain in the northwest and the central plateau both belong to the Anglo-Belgian Basin, and the Ardennes uplands in the southeast to the Hercynian orogenic belt. The coastal plain consists mainly of sand dunes and polders. Further inland lies a smooth, slowly rising landscape irrigated by numerous waterways, with fertile valleys and the northeastern sandy plain of the Campine Kempen.
The thickly forested hills and plateaus of the Ardennes are more rugged and rocky with caves and small gorges. The territory of Belgium is divided into three Regions, two of which, the Flemish Region and Walloon Region , are in turn subdivided into provinces ; the third Region, the Brussels Capital Region , is neither a province nor a part of a province. Belgium is a constitutional , popular monarchy and a federal parliamentary democracy.
The bicameral federal parliament is composed of a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives. The former is made up of 50 senators appointed by the parliaments of the communities and regions and 10 co-opted senators. Prior to , most of the Senate's members were directly elected. The Chamber 's representatives are elected under a proportional voting system from 11 electoral districts.
Belgium has compulsory voting and thus maintains one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the world. The King currently Philippe is the head of state , though with limited prerogatives. He appoints ministers, including a Prime Minister, that have the confidence of the Chamber of Representatives to form the federal government. The Council of Ministers is composed of no more than fifteen members.
With the possible exception of the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers is composed of an equal number of Dutch-speaking members and French-speaking members.
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The Court of Cassation is the court of last resort, with the courts of appeal one level below. Belgium's political institutions are complex; most political power is organized around the need to represent the main cultural communities. A string of Christian Democrat coalition governments from was broken in after the first dioxin crisis , a major food contamination scandal. The government led by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt from to achieved a balanced budget, some tax reforms , a labor-market reform, scheduled nuclear phase-out and instigated legislation allowing more stringent war crime and more lenient soft drug usage prosecution.
Restrictions on withholding euthanasia were reduced and same-sex marriage legalized. The government promoted active diplomacy in Africa [60] and opposed the invasion of Iraq. Verhofstadt's coalition fared badly in the June elections.
For more than a year, the country experienced a political crisis. On that day a new government , led by Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme , the actual winner of the federal elections of June , was sworn in by the king.
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On 15 July Leterme announced the resignation of the cabinet to the king, as no progress in constitutional reforms had been made. A few hours later, the new government under Prime Minister Yves Leterme was sworn in. On 22 April , Leterme again offered the resignation of his cabinet to the king [70] after one of the coalition partners, the OpenVLD , withdrew from the government, and on 26 April King Albert officially accepted the resignation.
By 30 March this set a new world record for the elapsed time without an official government, previously held by war-torn Iraq. The federal election coinciding with the regional elections resulted in a further electoral gain for the Flemish nationalist N-VA, although the incumbent coalition composed of Flemish and French-speaking Social Democrats, Liberals, and Christian Democrats maintains a solid majority in Parliament and in all electoral constituencies. It is the first time N-VA is part of the federal cabinet, while the French-speaking side is represented only by the MR, which achieved a minority of the public votes in Wallonia.
Following a usage which can be traced back to the Burgundian and Habsburg courts, [74] in the 19th century it was necessary to speak French to belong to the governing upper class, and those who could only speak Dutch were effectively second-class citizens. While the people in Southern Belgium spoke French or dialects of French, and most Brusselers adopted French as their first language, the Flemings refused to do so and succeeded progressively in making Dutch an equal language in the education system. Based on the four language areas defined in —63 the Dutch, bilingual, French and German language areas , consecutive revisions of the country's constitution in , , and established a unique form of a federal state with segregated political power into three levels: [78] [79].
The constitutional language areas determine the official languages in their municipalities, as well as the geographical limits of the empowered institutions for specific matters. The overlapping boundaries of the Regions and Communities have created two notable peculiarities: the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region which came into existence nearly a decade after the other regions is included in both the Flemish and French Communities, and the territory of the German-speaking Community lies wholly within the Walloon Region.
Conflicts about jurisdiction between the bodies are resolved by the Constitutional Court of Belgium. The structure is intended as a compromise to allow different cultures to live together peacefully. The Federal State's authority includes justice, defense, federal police, social security, nuclear energy, monetary policy and public debt, and other aspects of public finances. It controls substantial parts of public health, home affairs and foreign affairs.
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Communities exercise their authority only within linguistically determined geographical boundaries, originally oriented towards the individuals of a Community's language: culture including audiovisual media , education and the use of the relevant language.
Extensions to personal matters less directly connected with language comprise health policy curative and preventive medicine and assistance to individuals protection of youth, social welfare, aid to families, immigrant assistance services, and so on. Regions have authority in fields that can be broadly associated with their territory.
These include economy, employment, agriculture, water policy, housing, public works, energy, transport, the environment, town and country planning, nature conservation, credit and foreign trade. They supervise the provinces, municipalities and intercommunal utility companies. In several fields, the different levels each have their own say on specifics.
With education, for instance, the autonomy of the Communities neither includes decisions about the compulsory aspect nor allows for setting minimum requirements for awarding qualifications, which remain federal matters. The treaty-making power of the Regions' and Communities' Governments is the broadest of all the Federating units of all the Federations all over the world.
Because of its location at the crossroads of Western Europe , Belgium has historically been the route of invading armies from its larger neighbors.