Parliament of Wallonia

A 1974 law on the temporary creation of regions installed a Walloon Regional Council (alongside a Flemish Regional Council), which were both abolished in 1977. At the creation of the first (permanent) regional assemblies in 1980 (second state reform), the body was also called "Walloon Regional Council" (Conseil régional wallon). Its members were the national representatives and senators elected in the Walloon Region, who thus by law held two offices simultaneously.

The fourth state reform (1993) transformed Belgium into a federal state and changed the "Walloon Regional Council" (Conseil régional wallon) into the "Council of the Walloon Region" (Conseil de la Région wallonne), which was directly elected for the first time on 21 May 1995. Shortly before these elections, in April 1995, the Council adopted a resolution to use the terms "Walloon Parliament" (Parlement wallon) and "Walloon deputies" (députés wallons).

A 2005 constitutional amendment revised the official terminology for all community and regional councils into community and regional parliaments, changing the "Council of the Walloon Region" into the "Walloon Parliament" (Parlement wallon).

In 2015, the Parliament opted to use the term "Parliament of Wallonia" (Parlement de Wallonie) instead of "Walloon Parliament".

Saint-Gilles Hospice from the Meuse, beneath the Namur Citadel

All members of the Parliament of Wallonia are also members of the Parliament of the French Community, except for German-speaking members (currently Monika Dethier-Neumann and Edmund Stoffels) who represent the German-speaking population and are advisory members of the Parliament of the German-speaking Community.

The parliament exercises several functions:

• It discusses and passes decrees, and they can take initiatives to draw them up. After this, decrees are sanctioned and promulgated by the Walloon Government.
• It controls the Walloon Government. Control is exercised via the vote.
• It ratifies the international treaties linked to its powers.

The Walloon Parliament is the only Belgian parliament which still uses arrondissement-based constituencies. The federal Chamber of Representatives and the Flemish Parliament both merged theirs into larger province-based constituencies.

A January 2018 law merged both Luxembourg constituencies and reformed the Hainaut constituencies (* = boundaries changed), following a successful challenge by Ecolo to the Constitutional Court that constituencies with too few seats are unrepresentative.

• Government of Wallonia
• Minister-President of Wallonia
• Flemish Parliament
• Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region
• Parliament of the French Community
• Parliament of the German-speaking Community

• Official Webpage (in French)