Wallonia

The Walloon Region is the outcome of the federalist project of the Walloon movement. Their initial linguistic claims have evolved to increasingly focus on giving Walloons control over their economic future and their industrial redevelopment. In the wake of this dynamic, the Region emerged as a federated body in 1980. The Region has its own institutions, a Parliament and a Government, and enjoys relative freedom in organising them as it sees fit. Successive reforms of the State have allocated key, territory-related competences to the regions. In addition to this, the French-speaking community has transferred some of its powers to the Walloon region. For sections of Walloon politics, the community’s future and the relationship between Brussels and Wallonia are at the heart of the institutional agenda. Some wish the Walloon region to exercise all the powers that have been entrusted to the French-speaking Community. This implies both the existence of a Walloon identity independent of French-speaking identity and the possibility for Belgian federalism to evolve into a territorial model. This question brings up the fundamental disagreement between the country’s northern and southern federal doctrines, with the former favouring a state based on two large communities and the latter a Belgium of the regions