The Belgian and Dutch response to COVID-19: change and stability in the mayors’ position

ABSTRACT

How did Belgian and Dutch mayors experience their own role and that of local government during the first few months of the COVID-19 outbreak? This question was addressed by drawing on three analytical perspectives (functional, territorial, and political) on local government systems and using a qualitative case study design. Interestingly, the position and leeway of Belgian and Dutch mayors did not differ that much during the first crisis months. The type of virus and scope of the outbreak necessitated a centralised approach. Consequently, the decisions were made at the national level and mayors focused primarily on implementing these central measures. Moreover, Belgian and Dutch mayors experienced a similar shift in terms of (1) power and authority (respectively to the provincial governor and the national level and to the regional mayor and the national level); (2) tasks (prioritising crisis management over other tasks); and (3) roles (increasing importance of their executive role while lamenting the effects of COVID-19 on their social role vis-à-vis their citizens).

KEYWORDS:

• Mayors
• low countries
• crisis
• local response
• COVID-19

1. Introduction

Belgian and Dutch mayors fulfil a critical function in managing the COVID-19 outbreak. They are responsible for upholding corona measures at the local level while giving voice to local concerns at the regional and national levels. Embedded in a multi-level governance (MLG) system geared towards managing the COVID-19 outbreak, mayors face not only known but also new and unprecedented institutional challenges and constraints as existing MLG-structures are expanded and adjusted in response to the virus. How did mayors in both countries experience their own role and that of local government in such an environment?

This article aims to analyse how mayors across the low countries handled the pandemic from the start of February until the end of September 2020. To grasp the institutional conditions mayors faced from the start of the pandemic, we approach them as head of the local government system. To some extent, that system differs between Belgium and the Netherlands despite the low countries’ long bordering and common history. In the next section, we describe these differences from a functional, territorial and political perspective. In section 3, we address how we conducted this research while presenting our case findings in section 4. In the final section, we compare both cases and end up with striking similarities in the way Belgian and Dutch mayors experienced their own role and that of local government in the first months of the COVID-19 crisis.

2. Belgian and Dutch mayors operating under different systemic conditions

Belgian and Dutch mayors head diverse systems of local government. We reveal this systemic diversity drawing on three analytical perspectives that are widely used to study local governments within and across nations (Kuhlmann and Wayenberg 2016; Wayenberg and Kuhlmann 2018). These perspectives are functional, territorial and political in nature. Each of them points to one or more distinguishing features of the overall MLG-system in place. In this section, we describe the MLG-system which characterises each country in general. In response to COVID-19, crisis response systems within these MLG-systems were activated and adjusted where needed, resulting in a complex MLG-structure environment in which mayors have to work.

2.1. The functional perspective

Institutional variety among Belgium and the Netherlands immediately appears from a functional perspective. This perspective focuses on the distribution/fusion of public functions between central, regional and local governments and on their respective (financial) autonomy to do the job (Kuhlmann and Wayenberg 2016, 242).

In Belgium, mayors make a lot of their decisions within centrally regulated frames and settings. After all, Belgium primarily adheres to the continental-Napoleonic tradition of having a so-called fused local government system within which federal, regional, provincial and local (self-)government tasks are not being carried out separately, but in an integrated manner, particularly at the administrative level. Over the last two decades, New Public Management and Governance (NPM/G) reforms have increased the roles and responsibilities for cities and municipalities, in the northern region of Belgium (Vos and Voets 2021). But financial resources and the capacity to efficiently perform tasks have not grown accordingly, thus keeping local governments tied into a highly dependent position vis-à-vis the upper levels. The field of local public safety is no exception in this regard. Mayors are heading the local police and collaborate with colleagues from neighbouring municipalities in steering a local rescue zone. As such, they are in charge of taking crucial decisions, also in crisis times, be it within the lines of centrally directed arrangements.¹

Dutch mayors predominantly operate in another, i.e., Northern, type of local government system which, in theory, gives them more leeway than their Belgian counterparts. The Netherlands can be characterised as a decentralised, unitary state. In this system, municipalities have a relatively broad scope of responsibilities and autonomy (comparable to other Nordic countries), including crisis management, public order and public health. Yet at the same time, the unitary system results in a centrally imposed coherency and coordination (similar to the continental-Napoleonic tradition) (John 2001). In previous decades, a process of decentralisation has taken place, transferring even more tasks and responsibilities from the national government to local governments. Although this has made the local government level even more important, these growing responsibilities were not accompanied by sufficient financial resources or a higher level of financial autonomy (BNG Bank 2021), resulting in local governments relying quite heavily on central government and limiting their actual autonomy. Given the high interdependence between government levels, the relationship between central and local government is one of coordination and negotiation (Schaap 2019). This systemic feature grants Dutch mayors and local governments an important role in decision-making processes (with higher government levels) as well as in the execution of tasks. Interestingly, in the domain of crisis management and public order a process of nationalisation has taken place as the police has been centrally organised since 2013. This has limited mayor’s command over the police, although municipalities have created a parallel public order force in the form of extraordinary investigating officers (boa’s).

2.2. The territorial perspective

Our second perspective revolves around a country’s territorial structure and its local governments’ viability (Kuhlmann and Wayenberg 2016, 243). The small scale of local governments often results in local leaders reaching out to others to get a job done. Again, institutional diversity typifies the low countries.

Belgium has 581 cities and municipalities, generally small-scaled. 300 of them are located in Flanders with an average population range of 22,097. After the 1970s, there has been no country-wide obligation to locally amalgamate. Since 2016, the Flemish region has been explicitly nudging the local governments in its territory to merge voluntarily; primarily using the financial incentive of taking over local debts (Wayenberg, Steen, and Van Dijck 2018). So far, only 15 municipalities have answered this call and so the continental-Napoleonic tradition of having small-scaled localities still prevails throughout the country. Yet simultaneously, another territorial trend can be discerned as all local governments are increasingly involved in a wide array of networks. These networks cover practically all fields of local policy-making, including public safety. Some of these networks are merely inter-municipal while others are more complex. Particularly the latter have often been initiated/supported by the federal and regional governments as these governments help to deal with the lack of in-house governmental capacity at the municipal level (Vos and Voets 2021). Belgian mayors are thus used to seek and/or opt for collaboration with other private and/or public actors in dealing with local issues and concerns, especially in the small(-er) sized municipalities. Flemish municipalities, for example, are engaged in an average of 68 intermunicipal cooperations (Agentschap Binnenlands Bestuur 2021).

In turn, the Netherlands has 352 municipalities. The scale of Dutch municipalities has increased substantially in previous decades via processes of voluntary amalgamation with the average municipality now having around 50,000 inhabitants. Although the scale of municipalities is relatively large compared to many other European countries, the dominant role in public service provisions leads municipalities to organising many tasks in cooperation with other municipalities (Schaap 2019; Voorn, Van Genugten, and Van Thiel 2020). Dutch municipalities participate on average in 33 formal and informal inter-municipal collaborations in domains such as physical planning and maintenance, health care, welfare, and economy (Ministry of the Interior 2021). Inter-municipal cooperation is often voluntary, but in some instances, such as public health (municipal health services) and crisis management (Safety Regions (SRs)), inter-municipal cooperation is mandatory. Considering the role mayors have in SRs as well as the importance of SRs in managing the COVID-19 crisis, from a territorial perspective, mayors have crucial responsibilities in managing the outbreak. These concern responsibilities in the vertical coordination with national government as well as in the horizontal coordination within the region.

2.3. The political perspective

Our third and final perspective addresses various political traits of the local government system, especially how local leaders such as the mayor and members of the local council interrelate with each other as well as with citizens (Kuhlmann and Wayenberg 2016, 244). After all, mayors do not lead a local government solitarily, but together with many others.

In Belgium, mayors are appointed by the (regional) minister of internal affairs after being chosen by and usually among local council members. The latter are directly elected for six years and thus propose who is going to represent their locality to the outer world. Mayors usually belong to the largest political party that steers the municipality solely or in coalition with others. Consequently, mayors are closely involved in local politics (Wayenberg and De Rynck 2017). Together with the aldermen, they act as the local executive whilst retaining a seat in the local council. Often, mayors also chair that council. Officially, the local council directs and controls the executive, but in reality the executive takes the lead. Repeatedly, this monistic trait of the Belgian local government system has been severely discussed, particularly in the Flemish region, but no regulatory reform has been passed yet (Karsten, De Ceuninck, and Reynaert 2017). The same goes for another typically continental-Napoleonic and Belgian trait, that of mayors simultaneously holding mandates at a local and a higher level of government (Ackaert et al. 2007). Such dual mandates offer mayors an extra venue to easily access policy-makers at supra-local levels. At the local level, citizens enjoy a similar venue vis-à-vis their mayor as he/she is usually (seen as) accessible and easy to reach (Karsten, De Ceuninck, and Reynaert 2017). Especially in Flanders, mayors increasingly involve citizens directly by inviting them to participate or even be fully in charge of local decisions (Wayenberg and De Rynck 2017). Besides these political roles, they are also in charge of policing, emergency and safety in their territory, and included in the overall Belgian emergency and security governance.

In the Netherlands, mayors are not elected. Instead, a municipal council’s trust committee will advise the Crown whom to appoint as mayor (for a term of six years). This means that mayors stand above the parties and are not dependent on the electorate for their reappointment. Local council elections take place every four years. Based on the election results and the outcome of coalition negotiations, councillors select a number of councillors to become aldermen. These aldermen form the local executive, chaired by the mayor. Mayors also chair the local council, though they do not have a right to vote in that council. The formal relationship between local council and executive is dualistic, which means that both have their own tasks and responsibilities. In addition, since 2002, local executive’s members cannot be a member of the local council and each local council has its own local court of audit and its own supporting staff (Breeman, Van Noort, and Rutgers 2020; Schaap 2019). Having said that, the reality is that the executive often takes the lead while the local council has difficulty with controlling the executive. This is also due to the many inter-municipal collaborations municipalities participate in and the reliance on arm’s length bodies for public service provision (Van Genugten, Voorn, and Van Thiel 2020). In addition to chairing the executive and local council, mayors perform various other roles. These roles include being the municipality’s representative (e.g., in the SR), being responsible for public order and safety, and performing a caring role for their citizens (burgervader/burgermoeder) (Schaap 2019). In this latter role, certainly in smaller municipalities, Dutch mayors are accessible to and in direct contact with citizens. More generally, municipalities have been working on involving citizens in local politics via different forms of citizen participation, ranging from involving them in earlier stages of decision-making processes to giving them the right and budget to execute tasks that were previously executed by local governments themselves.

The three analytical perspectives show that the low countries’ MLG – systems vary. To what extent does this affect the management of the COVID-19 outbreak? After all, the mayors’ operating space varies as Dutch mayors have more leeway to act (due to the decentralised system) whereas Belgium mayors’ political role is more prominent (due to being elected and having to continuously interact with higher levels). Moreover, coordination/networks play an important role in both countries though Dutch mayors will probably have an advantage in dealing with the outbreak due to the existence of SRs. How Belgian and Dutch mayors experienced this complex environment will be addressed in section 4 after first addressing the methodology used in this research.

3. Methodology

To understand how mayors in the low countries experienced working within the complex MLG-structure during the COVID-19 outbreak from the start of February till the end of September 2020, we set up a cross-country comparison, comparing Belgium and the Netherlands. Within Belgium, we focused on the Flemish region because of access to sources. Our document study showed no indications of outspoken differences between Flanders and Wallonia as both regions fall under the same federal competence.

The cross-country comparison builds on document analysis (e.g., laws, policy documents and research reports) and semi-structured interviews, ensuring data triangulation across both types of sources (Miles and Huberman 2014). The aim of the interviews was to get a good impression of how Flemish and Dutch mayors operated in such a complex environment from the start of February till the end of September 2020. We therefore selected mayors in such a way that their experience best reflected the range of possible experiences by mayors in the two cases by ensuring variety in municipality size (small versus large), size of the outbreak (small versus large) and geographical location. Additionally, in the Dutch case we also ensured variety in the mayor’s role in the SR (chair or non-chair). Five Flemish and six Dutch mayors were interviewed, using the same topic list, building on the three perspectives discussed in the second section. Mayors were asked about their experience in their own locality, but also to reflect broader on other local governments’ experiences, talking, for instance, about how their colleagues were experiencing the situation. All in all, these steps ensured that the people interviewed for this study would give us a good impression of how mayors fared in Flanders and the Netherlands during the first eight months of the outbreak. It was also clear that a saturation point was reached as no new elements were presented in the last interviews in the set (Van Thiel 2014). In addition to interviewing mayors, we talked with experts about our research: representatives of the Flemish VVSG (Vereniging van Vlaamse Steden en Gemeenten) and an expert from the Dutch Society of Mayors (Nederlands Genootschap van Burgemeesters).

Most interviews took place via MS Teams or Zoom in-between March and December 2020. Interview notes were read carefully to validate, add to, and build on the information already provided through document analysis. In this process, several team discussions were organised as well.

4. Research results

4.1. Belgium

From a functional perspective, the crisis’ scope determines which government level is in charge of managing it: the federal (= national), the provincial or the local level.² Since this crisis quickly concerned more than one province, the federal phase was declared on 13 March 2020 by the National Security Council (NSC) as the key political decision-making body (Bouhon et al. 2020; NCCN 2020).³ This decision activated crisis units at the federal level led by the National Crisis Centre (NCCN), taking measures to be implemented via the provincial emergency teams led by provincial governors and via local emergency teams led by the mayors. Provincial governors are crucial linking pins: acting as an intermediary to implement crisis measures, consulting with the local level, and communicating local feedback up to the chain of command. Interestingly, next to this formal feedback channel, mayors also used their personal and party-political networks to signal any needs, conflicts, and implementation gaps that they felt required federal action.

During this crisis, the local governments performed two roles. First, municipal crisis teams loyally implemented federal crisis measures, including communicating to local citizens and enforcing corona measures (e.g., social distancing). Media reports and respondents mentioned that over time, local governments have been given more authority to deal with issues locally (e.g., to regulate face mask usage in their territory). But, as a second role, local governments also dealt with implementation gaps, local emergencies, and issues not covered by the federal crisis measures (such as dealing with the lack of PPE for elderly care centres). The extent to which local governments did more than implementing federal crisis measures depended on the emergency situation and the political leadership. Municipalities hit hard during the initial phase of the outbreak (March-June 2020), could not wait for federal policy and took charge (e.g., looking for PPE) while urging federal and regional governments to help them out. Local governments with (initially) lower contagion numbers had more time to wait for the federal government to take action and provide instructions. Regardless of the infection rate, municipalities have largely succeeded in guaranteeing the continuity of regular services (Jolie 2020). Moreover, in most municipalities, the political leadership also initiated policy actions to improve liveability (such as a shopping service or local initiatives against loneliness, helping out homeless people) and to support the most affected economic sectors (Debast 2020).

Overall, respondents were relatively positive about the way local government handled the situation, but indicated two factors that explain variance. First, the extent to which the mayor as a person, but also the municipal organisation as a whole, were prepared for crisis situations, proved very important. Prior to the virus outbreak, mayors had received training in crisis management and each municipality was supposed to have an emergency plan and at least one qualified emergency planning official, as required by law. In practice, however, this local level of preparedness regarding a crisis varied. Second, those municipalities with good knowledge of and experience in Digitalisation and e-government, as well as a strong local administration pre-corona, had a clear lead in reorganising the internal operation and implementing (necessary) new forms of service delivery during the lockdown. In other words, previous investments in strengthening and modernising the local administration clearly paid off in this crisis situation.

Respondents identified communication as the main problem when implementing centrally designed measures. In particular, the lack of coordination between regional and federal levels in the early stage of the crisis, had led to contradictory instructions (e.g., on which activities were still allowed) causing confusion and frustration among local governments (Bursens 2020).⁴ At the beginning of the crisis, some regional ministers, for instance, made statements which were subsequently nuanced or contradicted by the federal level. Some local governments simply ignored the latter and did what they felt was needed at the time, using executive orders if necessary (Burgemeestersbesluiten), while others were hesitant to take action without clear federal and regional backing. So even though formal crisis management structures were in place, this setup with highly dependent governments has proved sometimes rigid in formulating a coherent policy response (Stadig and Van Overbeke 2020). A second problem that caused a lot of frustration in the first couple of months, concerned the time lag between the public announcement of the federal crisis measures in press conferences and the actual publication of the legally binding decision in a ministerial decree (Debast 2020). Several respondents pointed out that this delay was problematic in two regards. First, it undermined the unity of command because without the detailed ministerial decree, it was not always clear what the exact measures were and who they applied to (e.g., which business needed to close). And second, a ministerial decree was needed to provide the much needed legal foundation for the local implementation of corona measures. Several times, local governments received the ministerial decree a couple of hours before the measures took effect in society.

From a territorial perspective, a certain degree of horizontal coordination was established, with municipalities consulting each other through formal (e.g., in provincial crisis teams, in inter-municipal police and safety zones, and inter-municipal companies) or informal structures (e.g., WhatsApp groups). During the crisis, the scope and intensity of cooperation depended strongly on needs and collaborative history. Larger cities did not feel the need to cooperate with other local governments as strongly as other municipalities, since the former have more capacity to deal with the situation on their own, but also considered their challenges so complex that there was little room for horizontal coordination in their region. Moreover, many municipalities with a strong collaborative tradition used their inter-municipal structures also for crisis management to, for instance, discuss how to deal with public events, buy face masks jointly, or exchange personnel. Horizontal coordination with all relevant stakeholders in the municipality was clearly crucial in dealing with the crisis as well.

The financial impact of the crisis on local governments is still unknown to this day. Although there were some savings (e.g., due to the cancellation of public events) and the federal and regional governments have provided various subsidies (e.g., additional funding for social policy) and other types of support (e.g., medical army support in elderly care homes), the long-term consequences remain largely unknown. Respondents argued that it is difficult to estimate what the impact on fiscal revenues will be, but most of them expected to lose income (e.g., lower tax revenues) while facing higher expenditures (e.g., more people relying on social support because of job loss). The Flemish municipalities and Public Centers for Social Welfare⁵ assumed that, due to the corona crisis, they will incur unplanned expenditure of approximately €139 million in 2021 while local revenues will drop by approximately €141 million (VVSG, and Vlofin 2020). One in five local governments expected that they will have to take measures in 2021 in order to remain financially viable in 2025 (VVSG, and Vlofin 2020).

From a political perspective, mayors are the central figure within the local crisis structure; a position which has become all the more prominent during the corona outbreak. Mayors, for instance, were very much involved in reorganising the way in which city hall operates and mayors often played an exemplary role in this regard (e.g., working at home or not). Moreover, mayors have, willingly or unwillingly, strengthened their position during the first crisis months: all respondents indicated that virtually every citizen, entrepreneur or civil society organisation contacted them with questions, and expected answers from them as well. This put a lot of stress on mayors, with some of them trying to ensure that they shared communication responsibilities locally (e.g., using communication officials, including aldermen, in the process), but other mayors almost monopolised communication and experimented with social media (e.g., doing Facebook live events for the first time). Additionally, mayors’ factual decision-making power increased, especially in the severely affected municipalities that required immediate action to be taken since the local crisis teams in charge consisted of public officials (e.g., the emergency planning official and the chief of police) with the mayor being the only politician. In several cases, decisions were only retroactively approved by the college of mayor and aldermen and the municipal council. Several respondents indicated that those colleges and municipal councils accepted the need for this way of working, but also indicated that some aldermen were clearly frustrated by the lack of consultation and their limited role in the crisis and crisis communication. Several mayors tried to tackle that frustration by, for instance, informing aldermen more frequently, creating local task forces on thinking about strategies to stimulate the local economy and improve social life, and putting aldermen in charge thereof.

While the mayor is appointed by law as the key local political player in crisis management, the intensity to carry out their function as crisis manager pushed aside other functions and activities that they perform as local indirectly elected politicians, which also caused some frustration. In Belgian local politics, many mayors (as well as aldermen) perform an important social function: they have office hours where any citizen can come to them with their requests, they go to many events that businesses or civil society organisations organise, they personally congratulate people that reach a certain age, and celebrate their marriage anniversaries. Respondents indicated that most of those activities reached a standstill because all energy and time went to crisis management, and that they missed that because they consider the social function as a key part of the job that they really like.

The corona measures also had an impact on the day-to-day running of the municipal council, with the monthly meetings in the council chambers being exchanged for online meetings. In most municipalities, this change took place relatively quickly and without many problems (Jansens, De Martelaere, and Van Der Stock 2020). In general, respondents indicated that this new medium did not create a different dynamic within the city council and that the relationship between opposition and majority during the crisis months was mostly constructive.

4.2. The Netherlands

Because of the nature (class-A virus) and scope (national) of the virus, the COVID-19 outbreak affected the scope and salience of functional responsibilities in three ways: (1) the crisis response through the Ministry of Health; (2) the SRs’ responsibilities in managing a class-A virus; and (3) the activation of a national crisis management structure. First, the Wet publieke gezondheid (Wpg)⁶ states that the Minister of Health is in charge of managing the outbreak; this includes having the power to tell SRs which measures to take. Second, there are 25 SRs; each comprising of a number of municipalities. The mayor of the largest municipality within a SR is the chair of that SR (informally called regional mayor) (Resodihardjo, Van Genugten, and Ruiter 2018). These 25 regional mayors form the SRs’ Safety Council (Veiligheidsberaad).⁷ The Wpg states that SRs will prepare for and manage the outbreak.⁸ In order to deal with a class-A virus, regional mayors can, for instance, isolate a person in hospital, quarantine someone or forbid someone to work if they could help spread the virus through their work.⁹ Third, the scope of the outbreak necessitates the activation of a national crisis management structure and requires all SRs to cooperate at the operational and administrative level; i.e., GRIP-4¹⁰ (Kraaij, Van Duin, and Cools 2020, 13; Van Duin et al. 2020, 9).

The combination of the above resulted in two power shifts which affected the role of mayors. The first revolves around the Prime Minister’s decision-making power during this crisis. A local or regional outbreak would normally be managed by the Minister of Health. The scope of the outbreak, however, necessitated the activation of the national crisis management structure which, in turn resulted in the Ministerial Committee Crisis Management (MCCb) (chaired by the Prime Minister) having the decision-making power (Kraaij, Van Duin, and Cools 2020, 32, 36–7). Mayoral influence on this decision-making process was limited, according to the respondents, although initially the chair of the Safety Council and one other regional mayor could attend the MCCb meetings and had a voice in these meetings. This changed on 1 July 2020 when the national crisis management structure (including the MCCb) was deactivated due to a low level of infections (note though that GRIP-4 remained active and the health crisis management structure remained in place) (Ministry of Justice and Safety 2020, 2; NCTV 2020a, 2020b; Van Duin and Wijkhuijs 2020b, 7; RNL1). The idea was to shift the crisis management response from the national to the regional level, giving SRs and regional mayors more leeway to deal with the crisis. The rapid increase of infections from September onwards, however, necessitated a more centralised approach by the end of September (Van Duin and Wijkhuijs 2020b, 7). Interestingly, the national strategic crisis management structure was only partially reactivated. The MCCb, for instance, was not reinstated, though a ministerial committee (MCC-19) had already been created (NCTV 2020b; Ministry of Justice and Safety 2020). However, MCC-19 is a political arena without decision-making powers. Consequently, instead of a formalised decision-making arena (i.e., the MCCb), decisions are now made by the Prime Minister and a small team of ministers in an informal setting (Brandsma 2020). Consequently, mayors lost their access to the national decision-making process (Kraaij, Van Duin, and Cools 2020, 40; NCTV 2020a, 2020b). Although the chair of the Safety Council can attend the MCC-19 in an advisory role, the MCC-19 is by no means the same as the MCCb. In short, as of 1 July, mayoral influence on the decision-making process is negligent.

This lack of influence might affect the level of mayoral support. Respondents indicated that outwardly they supported the measures. After all, if they did not support them, how could they expect their citizens to support them? Internally, discussion was limited as the focus was on implementing the measures. Yet at the same time, three respondents pointed out that the decision to de-activate the MCCb really affected their position in the management of COVID-19. Up till then, two regional mayors had official access to the MCCb and measures were discussed in the Safety Council and SRs before the public was informed. Some respondents noted that from that moment onwards, mayors have been informed at the same time as the public. Consequently, mayors are not prepared for what is to come, do not know the rationale, and cannot properly answer questions from the public about new measures and decisions. One respondent concluded that the new decision-making structure will have a negative effect on mayoral support. The lack of access and the more political nature of the decision-making process will undermine mayors’ confidence in the measures while making it more difficult for mayors to explain the new measures to the public.

The second power shift pertains to the shift of powers from local mayors to regional mayors. This shift is the result of two laws: the Wpg and the Wvr (Wet veiligheidsregio’s). In case of a class-A virus and crisis with an impact that goes beyond the local area, regional mayors take over the responsibilities from the affected municipalities’ mayors. Considering the scale of the COVID-19 outbreak, that means that regional mayors have taken over these powers from all the mayors in their SR. This power shift means that regional mayors are charged with implementing the decisions and measures approved by the MCCb in their jurisdiction. To that end they translated these decisions into emergency ordinances (Van Duin et al. 2020, 15–6).¹¹ They did so by discussing the COVID-19 measures’ implementation in the Safety Council, which resulted in a ‘non-binding template emergency ordinance’ for the individual SRs (Van Duin et al. 2020, 16).

Consequently, aldermen and non-regional mayors play no direct role in managing a class-A virus, but do play a role in implementing COVID-19 measures (Kraaij, Van Duin, and Cools 2020, 29; Van Duin and Wijkhuijs 2020a, 7, 11). According to respondents, main local responsibilities include communicating to the public, closing specific locations, and enforcing COVID-19 measures (such as the gathering ban and social distancing rule) laid down in the emergency ordinances. To that end, municipalities have established their own crisis management team (Van Duin and Wijkhuijs 2020a, 5). Respondents indicated that these COVID-19 related responsibilities were not new ones, but they did require much more attention compared to pre-COVID-19 times. Consequently, more capacity was needed to deal with this new prioritisation of tasks, though simultaneously other tasks (such as granting permits) required less capacity because of lockdown measures. Having said that, the new prioritisation resulted in some local plans’ postponement which, according to the respondents, was no longer sustainable considering the outbreak’s duration. The same applied to the heavy demands made on municipal staff.

From a territorial perspective, and as discussed above, power has shifted to the regional level as it is the SRs responsibility to deal with the outbreak. In order to deal with the pandemic, each SR activates a Regional Policy Team (RBT) though the RBT’s setup varies per SR (Van Duin et al. 2020, 17). Whether all non-regional mayors attend RBT’s meetings, for instance, varies per RBT. The RBT functions as the main platform when it comes to coordination and decision-making during the crisis. Through this platform it is also possible for mayors to provide local input and give advice on specific regulations of the emergency ordinances. The mayors’ ambition was always to come to an agreement and in practice they did. In addition to these formal ways of coordination, mayors informally coordinated and supported each other via app groups. In these app groups they answered each other’s questions and shared frustrations. Furthermore, bottom-up forms of collaboration emerged with regard to the enforcement of COVID-19 measures (by exchanging local enforcers (boa’s)) and crisis communication (by large municipalities taking over this task from small neighbouring municipalities).

In addition, the COVID-19 outbreak also demands the cooperation between SRs. This not only happens in the Safety Council (Van Duin et al. 2020, 16), but also in other settings. Several respondents, for instance, discussed the importance of coordinating the content of their emergency ordinances with neighbouring SRs to ensure differences were minimised. Additionally, the three VRs in the province Noord-Brabant created an Interregional Policy Team (IRBT) (Van Den Dikkenberg 2020).

The territorial perspective affects the political perspective because the dominant role of regional mayors vis-à-vis non-regional mayors has a profound impact on the accountability process. Regional mayors have taken over certain powers from non-regional mayors. Consequently, non-regional mayors can explain to their municipal council what is going on, but they cannot be held accountable for these decisions by their municipal council. Regional mayors can only be held accountable to some extent. They can answer municipal councils’ questions and visit municipal councils to inform them – which they did. But regional mayors cannot be held accountable by municipal councils (e.g., via a motion of no confidence), not even by their own municipal council. Some respondents did not see this as a problem, because most decisions were a matter of implementing national measures. However, the difficulty of municipal councils to influence the decision-making process was discussed by experts (Raad voor het Openbaar Bestuur 2020; NOS 2020), especially as the crisis continued and local councils felt more or less side-lined for an even longer period.

Another political perspective element revolves around mayors’ focus. Whether mayors are focused internally (their own citizens) or externally (the SR and central level), depends on their role in managing the crisis. Regional mayors were both internally and externally oriented. Non-regional mayors who play an organising role in their SR were also both internally and externally oriented as they were, for instance, contacting other mayors in their SR to ensure their views were properly represented in the RBT. Initially, both types of mayors were mainly externally oriented, but during the summer months they were able to focus their attention more internally. In contrast, non-regional mayors who could focus on running their municipality were internally oriented from the start of the crisis. When discussing their internal roles, respondents frequently mentioned three roles: mayors as crisis managers, mayors as administrators (as chair of the municipal executive and the municipal council) and mayors as burgervader/burgermoeder. The latter role needed to be redefined as the social distance measures severely impacted this role; this to the dismay of respondents as they not only deem this role to be important but they also love being able to connect to their citizens. Each mayor therefore found ways that suited them to continue to act in this role.

5. Conclusion

In this article, we analysed how Belgian and Dutch mayors experienced their own role and that of local government while managing the COVID-19 crisis using three perspectives: functional, territorial, and political. Our analysis of the time period from February till the end of September 2020, shows several striking similarities even though Belgian and Dutch mayors operated under different systemic conditions.

From a functional perspective, our analysis of these months shows a clear similarity in the overall MLG-system. In both cases, a clear top-down crisis structure was put in place: decisions were made at the national level and implemented at the provincial/regional and local levels. In the Netherlands, this was the result of the type of virus (shifting power from local to regional mayors) and scope of the virus (shifting power from the Minister of Health to the Prime Minister). And even though the Dutch government could rely on existing crisis structures, mayors were not that familiar with this type of crisis and improvisations were required. Local, regional and national governments were thus facing familiar as well as unfamiliar challenges. In Belgium, the country’s crisis management infrastructure is embedded within a complex institutional setting. Consequently, it took several months before local as well as other governments and their representatives found their way and function(s) in jointly fighting the pandemic. Our analysis also reveals the important and twofold role that Belgian and Dutch local governments play in this regard. Local governments continue to be indispensable, not only to execute federal/regional and provincial measures, but also to address crisis-related needs and concerns that were not spotted or neglected by higher levels.

The centralised decision-making processes with the accompanying power dominance severely affected mayors’ influence in both countries during the time period investigated. Basically, they had no or very limited influence on the decision-making process. Initially, the Dutch regional mayors could influence the decision-making process through their attendance of the MCCb. However, the de-activation of the MCCb and the shifting of decision-making power to the Prime Minister and a small team of ministers blocked regional mayors’ access. Consequently, mayors were sometimes briefed about new COVID-19 measures through the media, just like everyone else. This also happened in Belgium where mayors are located at the bottom of the multi-level chain of crisis management. However, not all mayors always resigned themselves to that position. On rare occasions, some of them turned to the (written) press to ventilate their discontent regarding the lack of crisis communication and coordination.

Where the two countries clearly differ is the evolution of the crisis management structures. Belgium started with a centralised crisis management structure where local governments felt they were not heard enough. Over time, changes were made to the crisis management structure to improve this. In contrast, the Netherlands started with a national crisis management structure in which two regional mayors had direct access to the decision-making forum (MCCb). The changes to the national crisis management structure (decentralisation during the Summer without reactivation of the MCCb in September) resulted in the closing down of this direct access.

From a territorial perspective, a striking similarity between the two countries revolves around mayors turning to each other in order to find solutions and support during the first months (February till end of September 2020) of the COVID-19 outbreak. To this end, they used existing inter-municipal networks or even created new ones; though the extent to which they looked for outside support varied per municipality. In Belgium, for instance, the severity of the crisis and level of crisis management training and ICT implementations pre-corona influenced the extent to which they sought outside help.

Looking at mayors from a political perspective brings another striking similarity across the low countries to the fore. After all, Belgian as well as Dutch mayors had to prioritise their executive role when the virus struck their community. During this time, they had to temporarily minimise their caring role (burgervader/burgermoeder) and their role as trustee vis-à-vis their citizens. Most of them found this transition challenging.

In sum, our analysis shows that during the first months of the COVID-19 outbreak, the local crisis response across the low countries fitted well within their respective MLG-systems even though mayors’ leeway diminished as a result of the centralisation of the decision-making processes. Consequently, Belgian and Dutch mayors’ primary focus was on implementing these measures in both countries. Moreover, mayors across both countries experienced a shift in terms of (1) power and authority (respectively to the provincial governor and the federal level and to the regional mayor and the national level); (2) tasks (prioritising crisis management over other tasks); and (3) roles (increasing importance of their executive role while lamenting the effects of COVID-19 on their role as citizens’ trustee and burgervader/burgermoeder). These shifts required flexibility and resourcefulness from mayors – something they have in spades as they were, for instance, pooling their resources, using WhatsApp, accessing informal/personal networks and finding creative ways to fulfil their social role. In doing so, Belgian and Dutch mayors have shown how indispensable local government and they themselves are in responding to crises.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ellen Wayenberg

Ellen Wayenberg is an associate professor in the Department of Public Governance and Management at Ghent University, Belgium, where she specialises in public policy and administration with a focus on local government and multi-level governance. She co-chairs the EGPA Study Group on Regional and Local Governance and co-edited, with T Bergström, J Franzke, and S Kuhlmann, The future of local self-government: European trends in autonomy, innovations and central-local relations, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

Sandra L. Resodihardjo

Sandra L. Resodihardjo is an assistant professor of public administration in the Institute for Management Research at Radboud University, the Netherlands. Her research interests include crisis management, accountability, inquiries, and framing. She has published in journals such as Public Administration and Safety Science, and is the author of Crises, Inquiries and the Politics of Blame, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

Joris Voets

Joris Voets is an associate professor of public administration in the Department of Public Governance and Management at Ghent University, Belgium. His research interests are the management and performance of interorganisational networks, and local government capacity, collaboration, and service delivery. He has recently co-authored papers published in Local Government Studies, Public Management Review and Public Administration Review.

Marieke Van Genugten

Marieke Van Genugten is an associate professor of public administration in the Institute for Management Research at Radboud University, the Netherlands. Her main research interest is local public management and governance, in particular public service delivery at arm’s length from local government. She has recently published in Local Government Studies, Public Administration and Public Management Review.

Bram Van Haelter

Bram Van Haelter is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Public Governance and Management at Ghent University, Belgium. His research interest is local government capacity.

Inke Torfs

Inke Torfs is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Public Governance and Management at Ghent University, Belgium. Her research interests include policy change, policy evolution, digital transformations and process tracing.

Notes

1. Since 1 January 2016, Belgium consists of 34 rescue zones. Each zone serves an area that stretches along the territory of several municipalities and is jointly steered by their respective mayors. A similar collaborative arrangement had already been put in place as part of a drastic police reform by the end of 1998. However, these so-called police zones do not always operate across multiple municipalities. Some of them are merely active within one (usually larger) locality, thus bringing their total number to 196 country-wide (Wayenberg and De Rynck 2017).

2. As emergency management is a federal competence, the regional level has no formal position in this three-level emergency management structure.

3. The National Security Council joins the federal Prime Minister, the federal Vice Prime-Ministers, and the regional Minister-Presidents.

4. In the federal state of Belgium, the federal government is competent for security and important parts of health care (e.g., hospitals, health care and finances), while regional governments are competent for some parts of health care (e.g., health inspection and prevention), but also wellbeing (like elderly care). In addition, regional governments are competent for many fields responsible for implementing crisis measures, such as education, culture, work, and youth. So while the federal government is clearly in the lead in times of crisis from a security and health perspective, regional governments are competent for many fields in which those measures need to be implemented and thus are affected by them.

5. Each municipality is required by law to have such a Centre, which deals with important parts of social policy.

6. art. 7.1 Wpg.

7. https://www.veiligheidsberaad.nl/over-het-veiligheidsberaad/ (checked 9-10-2020).

8. art. 6.2, 6.4, 8.2 Wpg.

9. art. 31, 35, 38 Wpg.

10. GRIP refers to the extent to which crisis management is scaled up (or down). Simply put, the higher the GRIP level, the more cooperation there is at the operational and administrative level. GRIP 1 and 2 reflect the extent of operational cooperation needed, whereas GRIP 3, 4 and 5 reflect the administrative cooperation (local, regional and above regional) (Van Duin et al. 2020, 9).

11. art. 39.1 Wvr.