Constitution of Belgium

Belgium's constitution was originally adopted on 7 February 1831, following Belgium's 1830 revolution and independence from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and it established the country as a constitutional, parliamentary monarchy. For its era the document was considered notably liberal, and it influenced constitutional drafting elsewhere in nineteenth-century Europe. It has since been extensively revised, most consequentially through a series of late twentieth-century state reforms, including major revisions in 1970, 1980 and 1988-89, that progressively transformed Belgium from a unitary state into a federal one, and a 1993 revision formally declared Belgium a federal state comprising Communities and Regions alongside the national government. As amended, the 1831 constitution remains Belgium's foundational law today.