The revised Constitution of 1993 and 2014 drastically changed the composition of the Senate. There are not only fewer senators, but the Senate itself is composed differently. The number of senators was decreased from 184 to 60.
The new Senate represents nearly completely the federate entities, as is the case in other federal states.
50 of 60 senators are elected at regional level, including 1 senator assigned by the German-speaking Community Parliament.
Moreover, 10 senators are co-opted by taking into account the results of the election to the House of Representatives.
For the instances prescribed by the Constitution, the Senate is divided into two linguistic groups.
The Dutch linguistic group consists of 35 senators: 29 senators assigned by the Flemish Parliament and 6 senators co-opted by both the above group.
The French linguistic group consists of 24 senators: 20 senators assigned by the French community Parliament, the Walloon Parliament and the French-speaking group of the Brussels Parliament and 4 senators co-opted by the above group.
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