The 1980 state reform is unsatisfactory for two main reasons. It remained unfinished on crucial points, e.g. the definitive settlement for the Brussels region and the transformation of the senate into a chamber for regions and communities. As the preparations for a revision of the constitution, necessary for such a change in the senate's assignment, have not even started, the independance of regions and communities has remained a dead letter. Secondly, the laws which should have executed the state reform concerning the competence-division between central, regional and communal government, remain obscure on many instances. No homogeneous policy-packages have been transfered to the communities or to the regions; moreover in the transfered policies certain parts were reserved for the central government and finally the limits between the several fields of competence are far from clear-cut. The result is policy-dispersion, endless competence-conflicts and immobility. The fundamental question remains whether the equivalence of central laws and regional and communal laws is a correct decision, or whether one should return to a hierarchy between the different policy-levels.