Thanks for writing this up Bob! And congratulations again to everyone who worked on this.
I would be interested to understand logistically how this happened. Who worked on it? What roles did they play? Were there political champions or was this mostly driven by grassroots support? How much lobbying was done of the different parties and what form did that lobbying take?
It was very grassroots, and mostly GAIA (the biggest aw NGO in BE by far). They collected many signatures in favor of this legal change and, in 2017, they convinced two seasoned politicians to submit a proposal to Senate in order to insert the provision in the Constitution (1 Flemish/​center politician and 1 Walloon/​right wing politician).
Left wing policitians (Groen/​ecolo/​ps/​Vooruit) came up with a new proposal that would give the provision teeth but found no majority in Senate. In 2024, they finally gave in and fell back to the original provision of 2017.
Lobbying was constant, fierce and personal. GAIA kept the pressure high throughout the entire process (many mailings, volunteer attendance in parliament (day and night), surveys amongst citizens to show support...).
Thanks for writing this up Bob! And congratulations again to everyone who worked on this.
I would be interested to understand logistically how this happened. Who worked on it? What roles did they play? Were there political champions or was this mostly driven by grassroots support? How much lobbying was done of the different parties and what form did that lobbying take?
It was very grassroots, and mostly GAIA (the biggest aw NGO in BE by far). They collected many signatures in favor of this legal change and, in 2017, they convinced two seasoned politicians to submit a proposal to Senate in order to insert the provision in the Constitution (1 Flemish/​center politician and 1 Walloon/​right wing politician).
Left wing policitians (Groen/​ecolo/​ps/​Vooruit) came up with a new proposal that would give the provision teeth but found no majority in Senate. In 2024, they finally gave in and fell back to the original provision of 2017.
Lobbying was constant, fierce and personal. GAIA kept the pressure high throughout the entire process (many mailings, volunteer attendance in parliament (day and night), surveys amongst citizens to show support...).