On June 9, Belgium held elections for the federal parliament and the regional parliaments. The process and results of these votes have garnered significant attention across Europe and the world.
Taiwanese political scientist Dr. Hua-Tsung Liu, professor at Nanhua University in Taiwan, has had a strong interest in Belgium's constitutional system and administration structure for many years. Five years ago, sponsored by the academic diplomacy program, he visited Belgium for two months to research the topic of federal constitutional reform. Naturally, he did not let this election opportunity pass by and made his second visit to Belgium with sponsorship provided by the National Science and Technology Council this year.
In addition to observing the elections and visiting Belgian colleagues, Professor Liu also took this opportunity to call on Ambassador Roy Chun Lee to exchange their observations on the elections in a general sense. Both of them commended the matured and stable democratic process, as demonstrated by the Belgian people's participation in the fair and transparent electoral procedures. Liu remarked that Belgium's "consociational democracy" attaches great importance to coordination and compromise among the multilingual and multicultural communities in the country. Before the election, some political parties engaged in lively democratic debates on federal constitutional reforms, and the post-election cabinet formation will also influence Belgium's future direction, making it a topic worthy of in-depth study by political scientists, he said.
We congratulate Belgium on its success in wrapping up another set of free and democratic elections, and, based on like-mindedness and mutual benefit, we look forward to jointly deepening the substantial cooperative relations between our countries.
