What can Parliament do without a government?

What Parliament can do

• Ask parliamentary questions to the caretaker government and demand answers
• Vote provisional twelfths to ensure budget continuity
• Hold parliamentary committees and hear experts or officials
• Debate resolutions and interpellations, even without full legislative capacity

What Parliament cannot do

• Vote new ordinances (regional laws) on matters requiring a fully empowered government
• Adopt a real regional budget — only provisional twelfths are possible
• Launch new public policies or create new programmes
• Make strategic appointments in regional bodies

Provisional twelfths

Voting provisional twelfths is Parliament's residual budgetary power without a government. Each quarter, Parliament authorises the Region to spend one twelfth of the last approved budget per month. This mechanism ensures administrative survival but prevents any new investment.

In practice

The Brussels Parliament continues to sit and work. Members ask questions, organise hearings, and debate. But their legislative capacity is structurally limited: without a government to propose and defend texts, the legislative process is largely paralysed.

Concrete activity since June 2024

Despite the absence of a fully empowered government, the Brussels Parliament has not been idle. Here is what it has concretely done since the elections:

• Provisional twelfths votes: Parliament has voted provisional appropriations each quarter to ensure budgetary continuity for the Region, COCOM, and COCOF
• Parliamentary questions: hundreds of written and oral questions have been addressed to the caretaker government, on subjects ranging from social housing to mobility to security
• Committee hearings: parliamentary committees have heard experts, heads of para-regional bodies, and field actors on the impacts of the crisis
• Resolutions and interpellations: Parliament has adopted non-binding resolutions calling for accelerated negotiations and the protection of certain budgets

Current composition

The Brussels Parliament has 89 members divided into two linguistic groups: 72 members in the French linguistic group and 17 members in the Dutch linguistic group. The presidency is held on a rotating basis. The 89 members are spread across 13 parties, making it one of the most fragmented parliaments in Belgium.

The double majority: key to the crisis

To invest a Brussels government, a majority must be secured in EACH linguistic group: 37/72 on the French-speaking side AND 9/17 on the Dutch-speaking side. With 13 fragmented parties, finding a combination that works on both sides simultaneously is an arithmetic puzzle. This constitutional requirement, designed to protect the Dutch-speaking minority, is the structural mechanism that explains the exceptional duration of the current crisis.