The role of a governmental think tank on the policy-process on institutional reforms resulting in the Lisbon Treaty.

This draft aims to analyze the role of a governmental think tank on the policy-process on institutional reforms resulting in the Lisbon Treaty. On 1st December 2009, the Lisbon Treaty entered into force. This latter has substantial impact on the European governance, largely due to central institutional changes. As outlined in the title, this draft analyzes the European governance through the Lisbon Treaty. Governance is generally defined as a co-production mode of decision-making among different types of actors. This governance will be analyzed through a specific actor willing to contribute to policy-making : the think tank, or research institute; defined as an organization generating policy-oriented research in an effort to enable policymakers to make informed decisions about public policy issues. Based on a theoretical framework on the influence of think tanks in Germany developed by Thunert, we hypothesize that strategies developed by the BEPA have a stronger visibility at the issue articulation stage; and a medium visibility at the policy formulation and policy implementation stages. This theoretical framework has been developed at a meso level. The purpose of this draft is to test it at a macro level: the EU level. The analysis of the governmental think tank will also enrich our understanding of the relationship between the BEPA and the European Commission. Do we face an instrumentalization by the European Commission of the BEPA? We might hypothesize that the European Commission uses the competencies developed by the BEPA in order to meet its own interests. Think tank could have an impact on three different stages (issue articulation, policy formulation and policy implementation). The model developed by Thunert could be transposed to the political process that led to the Lisbon Treaty; from the Laeken Declaration in 2001 to the signature of the Lisbon Treaty in 2007. On basis of a sequential analysis, working groups – were selected: the Amato group, the Convention on the Future of Europe; the Round table on “A sustainable project for tomorrow’s Europe”, also known as Strauss-Kahn report; and the Amato group

(Re-)Assessing Political Careers Patterns in Multi-level systems. Insights from Wallonia

Most studies on political careers adopt a macro perspective to establish career patterns which brings the risk of overlooking the importance of transfers between parliaments in the estab-lishment of career patterns. As movements between levels often hides a more complex empiric reality of political careers, this research suggests to adopt a micro-longitudinal perspective through the systematic analysis of individual political careers. Based on an in-depth case study of Walloon trajectories in Belgium, this article demonstrates that this approach permit to un-cover other patterns. Contrary to the conclusions of previous studies, the findings conclude that Wallonia is not only characterized by the integrated career, but completed by three other robust career patterns, the alternative pattern with the regional and federal careers and the discrete pattern

The 2013 Senate reform and the representation of linguistic minorities in Belgium

After years of political crises and negotiations, the deep-rooted conflict between Dutch- and French-speaking parties recently led to the 2011 agreement concerning a further reform of the Belgian state. This reform mainly furthers decentralises the – already federal – state structure, including the allocation of additional competences and fiscal powers to sub-national entities (Regions and Communities). But this new state reform also brings about a radical reform of the upper house: the Belgian Senate. Since 1995, the Senate was composed of three different types of members: Senators directly elected by two linguistically separated electorate (the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking electorates), Senators indirectly elected by the Community parliaments and Senators coopted by the two other types. The French- and German-speaking linguistic minorities had a fixed amount of seats in this assembly. The reform of the state radically changed the legislative competences of the Senate and its composition as its members will now be designated by Regional and Community parliaments (plus 10 coopted senators). Broadly speaking, the appointment of the majority of the Senators moved from a system of direct and language-based election to a system of indirect and mixed regional and language-based designation. This change is not without consequence for the representation of linguistic minorities. In May 2014, regional, community and federal elections will be organised in Belgium, testing for the first time this new system of designation of Senators by regional and community parliaments. This paper intends to present the 2013 reform of the Senate in Belgium and its consequence for the representation of linguistic minorities. The situations before and after the reform of the Senate will be compared, not only in terms of the way Senators are appointed but in terms of its consequence on the linguistic aspects of the regional and community elections campaign and of the profile of the appointed Senators

Political and humanitarian support: Return on citizens’ solidarity with refugees in Belgium.

Since the summer of 2015, European states seem to be facing several challenges linked to the massive influx of asylum seekers. Such chaos has never been so evident in the European management of newcomers. Indeed, despite the scale of the phenomenon - asylum applications have doubled in the 2015/2016 period compared to the figures of previous years - Member States are reluctant to speed up the processing of cases and grant protection to asylum seekers. Against a background of radicalization of the political spectrum, states’ reluctance to "welcome" migrants reinforces the "nodes" already existing in the global mobility circuit, leaving no choice to a large number of newly arrived families in Europe than to stay in the streets while waiting for the outcome of their application