Intergovernmental Co-operation for International Decision making in Federal States: The Case of Sustainable Development in Belgium

Abstract

In federal states, intergovernmental co-operation between the federal government and the subnational governments can be instigated by international decision making. That is particularly interesting in the case of sustainable development, which is characterized as an ‘outside-in’ policy or a policy that finds its way to the domestic policy agenda because of international pressures. The article analyses intergovernmental co-operation for international decision making on sustainable development and studies the federal state of Belgium. It consists of a framework that discusses the Belgian institutional context, and an empirical part that analyses in detail Belgian intergovernmental co-operation practices. Three international decision-making settings are examined—the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, the OECD Annual Meeting of Sustainable Development Experts and the EU discussions on its Sustainable Development Strategy. The article argues that there is no lack of intergovernmental co-operation for international decision making on sustainable development in Belgium. Yet, the co-operation practices are informal and ad hoc and Belgium lacks a formal framework.

Keywords:

• Federalism
• intergovernmental co-operation
• Belgium
• sustainable development
• UN
• OECD
• EU

Acknowledgements

This research was partly funded by the Flemish Policy Research Centre for Sustainable Development (2007–2011). It is part of a doctoral research project (Van den Brande, 2012). An earlier version of the article was presented at the 52nd Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (16–19 March 2011, Montreal, Canada). The author thanks all members of the Belgian delegation for their co-operation to this research. Moreover, the author highly appreciates the useful comments and suggestions of Stéphane Paquin and Wilfried Swenden, and of two anonymous reviewers.

Notes

A subnational entity is defined as a “coherent territorial entity situated between local and national levels” and its government as the “set of legislative and executive institutions responsible for authoritative decision-making” (Marks et al., 2008: 113). The notion ‘regional’ indicates the level immediately above the nation-state, including, for example, the EU. The term ‘international’ is used when referring to both the regional and the global level.

That can also be described as the choice for a co-operative strategy instead of a separating strategy, as labelled by Beyers and Bursens (2006). They argue that subnational entities can adopt a co-operative strategy entailing that those entities “remain hierarchically nested within a domestic institutional framework” (Beyers and Bursens, 2006: 1060) or a separating strategy implying that they “separate themselves from the central government by increasingly bypassing or acting beyond the existing member state structures” (Beyers and Bursens, 2006: 1060).

The discussion is based on co-operation practices for the two-yearly CSD cycle of 2008 and 2009, for the 2009 and 2010 AMSDE meetings and for the 2009 EU discussions on the European Commission's progress report and the next review of the EU SDS.

For an overview of the most important decisions taken at each of those state reforms (in 1970, 1980, 1988 and 1992), see Swenden et al. (2006).

The competencies of the Flemish Community and the Flemish Region are managed by the government of Flanders.

Art. 146 of the Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC); art. 203 TEC according to the new numbering of the Amsterdam Treaty.

For shared responsibilities, co-operation with the federal government is required (Beyers et al., 2004).

In full: Framework agreement of 30 Jun 1994 for co-operation between the federal state, the Communities and the Regions on the representation of the Kingdom of Belgium in international organizations discussing issues that are shared competencies (Belgisch Staatsblad, 1994a).

In full: Cooperation agreement of 8 Mar 1994 between the federal state, the Communities and the Regions on the representation of the Kingdom of Belgium in the Council of Ministers of the European Union (Belgisch Staatsblad, 1994b).

For matters in category I (on general affairs), a federal minister represents Belgium. In category II (on the internal market), a federal minister can be accompanied by a subnational assessor. In category III (on industry), a subnational minister can be accompanied by a federal assessor and, for category IV matters (on culture), a subnational minister represents Belgium. Category V and VI concern one matter—fisheries and agriculture, respectively. For the former, the Flemish Minister of Fisheries represents Belgium, in the case of the latter, the federal minister speaks for the Flemish and the Walloon government (Belgisch Staatsblad, 2003; VVPV, 2009).

Agenda 21 defines the following nine Major Groups: women; children and youth; indigenous people; non-governmental organizations; local authorities; workers and trade unions; business and industry; scientific and technological communities; and farmers.

The Federal Planning Bureau is a federal public agency engaged in economic analysis and forecasting. Its role has developed historically. When the federal government institutionalized sustainable development with the Law of 1997, experts of the Bureau had already been following the international decision-making process on sustainable development closely for years. They had built up expertise and institutional memory that could not be replaced overnight. As a result, a political agreement has assigned those experts a mandate to follow-up on international discussions on sustainable development in the CSD and the AMSDE (interviewees).

A pilot can be defined as “a federal or subnational official who is made responsible for the internal Belgian supervision of an individual dossier” (Van den Brande et al., 2011b: 76).

If a minister attends the CSD meeting, that minister represents Belgium. Yet, federal and subnational ministerial participation at the high-level part of the CSD has been rather exceptional. More than once, ministers found it difficult to attend the CSD because of a problematic political situation in Belgium.

Flanders attends the meetings regularly, the Brussels-Capital Region less and the other subnational governments only rarely (interviewees).

The seven key challenges for the EU are climate change and clean energy; sustainable transport; sustainable consumption and production; conservation and management of natural resources; public health; social inclusion, demography and migration; and global poverty.

In 2009 and 2010, a discussion took place at the EU level about a potential revision of the EU SDS in 2011. At the time of writing, it is likely that the EU SDS will not be revised or renewed (interviewees).

Previously, when the ad hoc IMCSD was at work for negotiating a national strategy for sustainable development, national co-ordination of a Belgian position on the EU SDS took place in a working group of that Interministerial Conference (interviewees). In a next phase, the agreed Belgian position was adopted by DGE.