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Cites

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1		-The three regions of Belgium should prohibit the production of nuclear power. The Federal Government of Belgium should devolve authority over nuclear power to the regions.
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3		-In the context of environmental regulation, provinces should regulate nuclear power
4		-Gayard 13 Gregoire Gayard (Centre Thucydide – Analyse et recherche en relations internationales Université Panthéon-Assas), "How Regions Contribute to Belgium's International Climate Policy: A Comparison of Belgian and Canadian Multi-Level Climate Politics," 2013 AZ
5		-In practice, Belgium's climate policy coordination mechanisms give a large place to the regions. Even though the federal government is responsible for organizing the coordination mechanisms, regions have a leading role in the CCIEP. This is due to the fact that the environmental competencies are mostly regional. Therefore, the pilots very often come from the regional level. 29 Another important feature of the coordination mechanism is the tendency of the minister's cabinets to play an important role in the position formation process. Interviews with experts and members of ministers' cabinets at both the federal and regional level showed that representatives of the ministers' cabinets have an input at every level of the coordination. Even at the administrative level of the GECG, experts from the various governments are in constant contact with their minister's cabinet. Members from these cabinets also have informal relations with the pilots. These contacts increase when an issue is politically sensitive. Also, as soon as a disagreement occurs, the issue is usually discussed in informal inter-cabinet meetings between the various governments. These findings are confirmed by the observations made by various authors who conducted the same type of interviews30 . To summarize, we can identify three main characteristics of the system we have just described. First, the coordination mechanisms allowing regions to be deeply involved in the international climate policy of Belgium are highly institutionalized. The coordination architecture includes many committees, working groups, and conferences, whose relations to each other are defined by written mechanisms. The role, the composition, and the decision mechanisms of each cog in the coordination machinery are defined by cooperation agreements, and even individual committees such as the CCIEP have their own set of rules and regulations. The complexity of this architecture is described by the participants as a necessary evil. Many interviewees declared they were aware that the coordination process often delays the definition of an international policy, but that this was the necessary price to pay to make sure that the Belgian position would be coherent and adhered to by all parties. Second, the architecture allows every concerned level of government to have an input in the policies that are defended by Belgium. The fact that the whole process is based on a consensus decisionmaking system ensures that each participant has the power to veto a position or a decision. This does increase the risk of policy failure, in the sense that if an agreement is ultimately impossible to find between the various components of Belgium, the country will not be in a position to express itself on the international stage. Finally, the mechanisms ensure that the large involvement of the regions will not weaken the coherence of the country's positions on the international stage. The system is remarkably efficient in this regard, in the sense that while it allows for a large input from the regions, it still permits the formulation of a coherent policy which is expressed through a single voice. This is confirmed when we examine the strategies favored by the regions to defend their positions on the international stage. Rather than expressing themselves directly on the international stage to defend their individual interests, the regions have mostly opted to channel their voices through the Belgian positions. Van Den Brande, Happaerts and Bruyninckx have shown that Flanders most extensively used “intrastate routes” to get involved in the global sustainable development debate, because of the opportunities offered by the intra-Belgian arrangements31 .

EntryDate

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1		-2016-10-09 20:57:47.0

Judge

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1		-Adam Bistagne

Opponent

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1		-Lynbrook VV

ParentRound

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1		-18

Round

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1		-5

Team

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1		-La Canada Zhao Neg

Title

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1		-SEPOCT - CP - Belgium Regions

Tournament

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1		-Voices