Belgium has 31,800 politicians, administrators and cabinet members across all levels combined. This large number is mainly due to French-speaking Belgium, a new study shows.
After Luxembourg and Portugal, Belgium has the highest number of MPs per million inhabitants in Europe. With no fewer than six regional and community parliaments (seven if the German-speaking Community is included), the country has an impressive total of 592 MPs, 51 for every one million citizens. In addition, there are 54 ministers with all together 2,000 cabinet members, 13,300 municipal councillors and 9,580 directors of ‘intercommunal companies’, associations of municipalities whose purpose is to carry out tasks of common interest.
In total, Belgium thus has 31,800 politicians, administrators and cabinet officials across all government levels combined. This large number is mainly due to French-speaking Belgium, according to a study by economists Jean Hindriks and Alexandra Lamfalussy (UCLouvain and Itinera). Of all types of politicians, there are more in Wallonia and Brussels than in Flanders. For starters, Flanders has 1 minister per 740,000 inhabitants, while Brussels and Wallonia have 1 per 230,000. The three governments in Brussels and Wallonia also have the largest cabinets and the biggest number of MPs per capita. The French Community and the Walloon Region have twice as many MPs per capita as Flanders. In Brussels, it is even four times as many.
The new numbers in the report mainly show the complexity of Belgium’s government and parliamentary system, which is indicative of Belgium’s federal structure and linguistic and cultural diversity. In Europe, only Portugal and Luxembourg have a higher number of MPs per million inhabitants than Belgium.
