ABSTRACT
Belgium is a constitutional monarchy. King Albert II succeeded his elder brother Baudouin (1951–1993) whose long reign followed difficult times for the royalt after the Second World War. Although the King is formally part of both the legislative and executive powers (but his acts are always since 1831 countersigned by a minister), his role in law-making and the day-to-day running of executives has at least since the Second World War been greatly reduced. 1 The King's political role in contemporary Belgium is confined to cabinet formation and termination, during which he is given more leeway to take action aimed at stimulating political representatives to find a solution acceptable to a parliamentary majority. Even in this limited – but eminently important for a society characterized by multiple divisions and policy dimensions with at times extreme cabinet instability – remit, the King has increasingly been constrained by political parties' strategies and agendas, as recently shown by the six-month-long cabinet formation of 2007. The current Constitution still stipulates that 'the King appoints and revokes his ministers', but since 1945 only the personality and longevity of King Baudouin made at times this formal power effective.
