Belgian Federal Parliament

The Belgian Federal Parliament is the bicameral parliament of Belgium. It consists of the Chamber of Representatives (Dutch:  Kamer van Volksvertegenwoordigers , French: Chambre des Représentants, German: Abgeordnetenkammer) and the Senate (Dutch:  Senaat , French: Sénat, German: Senat). It sits in the Palace of the Nation (French: Palais de la Nation; Dutch: Paleis der Natie). The Chamber of Representatives is the primary legislative body; the Senate functions only as a meeting place of the federal communities and regions.

Chamber of Representatives

The Chamber of Representatives holds its plenary meetings in the Palace of the Nation, Brussels. Eligibility requirements for the Chamber are a minimum age of 21, citizenship, and residency in Belgium.

The number of seats in the Chamber is constitutionally set at 150 elected from 11 electoral districts. The districts are divided along linguistic lines: 5 Flemish (79 seats), 5 Walloon (49 seats), and the bilingual district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (22 seats). The districts are the provinces, except for the districts of Leuven (part of Flemish Brabant) and Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. Each district is given a number of seats proportional to its population (not number of voters) ranging from 4 for Luxembourg to 24 for Antwerp. All districts have an electoral threshold of 5%, except for Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde and Leuven; all districts are monolingual, except for Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde which encompasses both the 19 bilingual municipalities from the Brussels-Capital region and some 35 Dutch-speaking municipalities in Flemish Brabant, incl. 7 with language facilities for French-speakers.