Belgium

In 1994 the first quota law was adopted. The lists of candidates could not have more than two-thirds of the same gender, under penalty of not getting the list accepted. In the first round of elections on the communal and provincial level, in 1994, however, the quota was only 25 %. The federal elections of 1995 were exempted from quotas (Meier 2008, p. 43).

In full effect, the 1994 quota laws was used for the elections at all levels - communal, provincial, regional, federal and European parliament - in 1999 and 2000. The law was then supplemented in 2002 and got its current design. For the first elections for every level that it was used - regional, federal and European - it only stipulated that the first three of every list could not be of the same gender. The communal and provincial are now locally regulated, but quota laws are similar (Meier 2008, p. 43-44).

The first use of the current quota was in 2007 for federal elections and 2009 for regional and European parliament.

• Electoral Code, amended 2009 (Code électorale, Consultation des versions antérieures à partir du 10-01-2003 et mise à jour au 15-04-2009)
• Meier, Petra (2008), ?Belgium: a best practice put in perspective? in Electoral Gender Quota Systems and Their Implementation in Europe, Drude Dahlerup & Lenita Freidenvall (eds.), Directorate-General for Internal Policies, PE-408.309, Brussels: European Parliament