Council of Ministers of BelgiumGovernment

The Council of Ministers is the supreme executive collegial body of the Belgian federal government, chaired by the Prime Minister and composed of federal ministers. Its mandate is to determine and coordinate overall government policy, introduce legislative proposals, and issue royal decrees. Although ministerial cabinets have operated since Belgian independence in 1830 and were formalized after World War I in 1918, the Council was formally enshrined in the Belgian Constitution during the 1970 state reform, which mandated strict linguistic parity between Dutch- and French-speaking ministers.