Can someone please how the Belgian government works and how can the country stay without a government for over 500 days.
In: Other
“Shutdowns” don’t really exist in other countries. The American system is unique that everything freezes and stops functioning if a Budget isn’t passed by the president.
In Belgium, a large portion of the governance is done at a local region level (ie states) and not the national level. Each region had its own parliament and handled their own internal affairs. So the “shutdown” did not affect education, health, pensions or other public services.
Even then, their national government (ie federal) can still function even under a “shutdown”. The previous government is allowed to stay on as a “caretaker” until a successful election of the next party. There was virtually no difference from normal governance, except that no new laws could be passed. They just used the same old budget and same old policies as before.
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