Belgium is famous for not having a government many times, and if it has one, it's often not able to act.

Belgium has a pretty divided population (Wallonia/Flanders) and no winner-takes-all election system, and so there's often a stalemate where no majorities can be reached for any votes, including for electing the government officials).

After the last elections on 26 May 2019, the winnings parties have been unable to form a coalition, so there is no real cabinet at the moment which has the power to do the things that need to be done.

We do have a government though (quite a few of them even, but the federal government is the one that matters here) with all the power needed to do whatever it deems necessary.

And the federal government has said that indoor meetings with more than 1000 persons are "not recommended". The Brussels government has cancelled those, the Walloon cities don't have events of more than 1000 persons planned in the near future, and the Antwerp government seems to be using the whole thing as an opportunity to criticize and reject any responsibility on the federal government without taking any decision (as far as I know, the Simple Minds concert hasn't been cancelled yet, and is supposed to have a lot more than 1000 people).

There are actually a lot of governments which each have the power to do things. I personally think that the only reason they don't do anything useful is pure incompetence, irresponsibility and political calculations.

> We do have a government though (quite a few of them even, but the federal government is the one that matters here) with all the power needed to do whatever it deems necessary.

Really? Because I seem to have read that budget deficit is getting out of hand because there is no federal government to fix it.

Also, yeah, fair enough. There are a handful of other governments that technically could take a decision, but as you said: it's easy to say: "well, this is a federal decision, so we won't do anything".

Budget is one of those things that cannot be voted by the current affairs government so they just keep renewing the last budget allowances from the last actual government, as far as I understand (I don't know if it's a legal requirement, or just a custom). Don't take my word for it though, I'm definitely not an expert on Belgian politics.

But the coronavirus crisis is definitely a current affair, and the current government has free reign to do anything it deems necessary about it.