Parliament and Government

The tasks of the Government

The Government: K.-H. Lambertz, I. Weykmans, O. Paasch, H. Mollers

For the matters related to communitarian competencies,

• the Government deliberates all the draft decrees and orders;
• it suggests the way budgetary resources should be spent;
• it works out and organizes the communitarian policy;
• it carries out the Parliament’s decisions.

Parliament - Government

• The parliamentarian and democratic system of the separation of powers is a checks and balances system. The executive power has not the right to determine the major political directions of the community without the involvement of the legislative power and vice versa.
• In theory, only the parliamentarian decisions (decrees) have the power to organize the government policy, and the Government itself only becomes politically active from the moment it gains support from a majority of the Parliament.
• In return, the Government is responsible for the execution of the Parliament’s decisions.

Among other things, the law on the institutional reforms consists of some clauses concerning the relationships between the communitarian Government and the Parliament.

• The Parliament elects the Government (constituted by three to five members, including at least one man and one woman).
• The members of the Government take the oath before the President of the Parliament.
• If a member of the Government is elected at the Parliament, s/he has to suspend the minister’s mandate in order to exercise the parliamentarian’s mandate.
• The Government and its members are politically responsible in front of the Parliament. In other words, they have to justify their policy in front of it. For instance, the Parliament can require the presence of the ministers. On the other hand, the Parliament is obliged to give the floor to the members of the Government when they wish to.
• At any time, the Parliament can adopt a motion of no-confidence against the Government or against ministers on condition that the motion recommends successors (constructive motion of no-confidence).
• The Government can raise the question of confidence within the Parliament. If the majority of the parliamentarians vote against the confidence, then the law obliges the Government to resign.
• The Government approves the decrees and issues the regulations and orders necessary to the execution of the decrees. However, it has not the right to suspend neither the decrees nor their execution.