Belgian Union

Belgische Unie – Union Belge (BUB), translated in English as "Belgian Union", is a young political party in Belgium, taking action against the separatism in the country.

Belgium is a country with a very difficult structure. In the center of Europe, it consists of 3 large language groups: Dutch speaking Belgians or Flemings (north Belgians, about 59% of the population), French speaking Belgians or Walloons (south Belgians, about 40% of the population), and German speaking Belgians (East Belgians, about 1% of the population).

Throughout the years, Belgium has been reformed into some kind of "double" federal state: there is a federal Belgian governement, the territory is divided in 3 Communities (Flemish, Walloon, German-speaking), and concurrent with this division also exists another one, the Regions (Flemish, Walloon, Brussels-Capital Region). So one is part of Belgium, one Community, and one Region. The Communities have the power over cultural facilities: education, culture, sports... while the Regions have power over environmental facilities: environment and city planning, tourism,... The federal government has been stripped to maintain mainly the departments of Justice, Finances, Foreign Affairs (though Foreign Trade is regional), and Internal Affairs (though regions also have ministers for this).

The Belgian Union is a party for reconciliation between the language groups, promoting multilingualism, and 1 government for all Belgians without the division by language (which they consider as racist as a division by skin colour). They mainly want to get rid of the Regions and transfer their powers back to the federal state of Belgium. They are the only party defending this, all other Belgian parties have, together with the creation of the federal states, been split on a language basis.

The party grew with 2500 votes, but that was mainly because they joined the elections in more voting districts. In those districts, where they already joined the elections previous years, they lost votes.

External links

• Official web page