The Nation vs. the People. The unconstitutionality of secessionist referendums under Belgian constitutional law

Van Crombrugge, Ronald
(2023) The Nation vs. the People. The unconstitutionality of secessionist referendums under Belgian constitutional law — Vol. 34, n° 2, p. 301-320 (2023)

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The last decades saw a number of controversial independence referendums in different multinational democracies around the world. Québec, Scotland and Catalunya all come to mind. In all these examples, the call for more autonomy and even independence seems to go hand in hand with a call to hold referendums on these issues. From this perspective, Belgium can be considered a somewhat curious case: it is a nation divided along linguistic lines, with a strong Flemish independence movement— indeed, the two largest political parties represented in the Flemish parliament at the time of writing both strive for independence. Yet there are no (serious) calls to organise a referendum on this issue. Part of the explanation for this has to do with political strategy. Greater Flemish autonomy has been achieved through repeated political compromise, rather than an all-or nothing bid for independence; gradually transforming Belgium from a unitary state into a federation. Part of the explanation, however, also has to do with the legal landscape. Referendums are considered unconstitutional in Belgium, so that any (inde- pendence) referendum would require a prior constitutional amendment to create a specific legal basis. The focus of this paper is to discuss the issue of independence referendums from the perspective of Belgian constitutional law as it exists today. As will become clear, a number of interesting parallels can be drawn with the United Kingdom, particularly in light of the recent judgment by the Supreme Court on the Reference by the Lord Advocate of devolution issues. Before I do all that, however, I will first shortly introduce the issue of secessionism in Belgium, and how it relates to federalism; as well as give a short historical overview of the debate on referendums in Belgium.
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Van Crombrugge, R. (2023). The Nation vs. the People. The unconstitutionality of secessionist referendums under Belgian constitutional law. The Nation vs. the People. The unconstitutionality of secessionist referendums under Belgian constitutional law, 34(2), 301-320. https://doi.org/10.1080/09615768.2023.2250559 (Original work published 2023)