National minorities and linguistic issues: the Flemish perception

In 2001 and 2002, Human Rights Without Frontiers conducted an investigation about the situation of the Dutch-speaking people in the Brussels-Capital Region and of the French-speaking people in the so-called communes with facilities situated in the periphery of Brussels but in the Flemish region.

In this framework, Sascha Dubbeld, on behalf of Human Rights Without Frontiers, met with Dutch-speaking members of the Brussels Parliament and asked them a number of questions. Their answers and viewpoints are summed up under the headings “Brussels-Capital Region : the Flemish perception” and “The communes with facilities: the Flemish perception”.

Brussels-Capital Region

The linguistic minority issue in Brussels

The percentage of 16%-18% Dutch-speaking people living in the Brussels-Capital Region (19 communes) can be established on the basis of the number of voters for Flemish parties. Other statistics show they represent about 15-20% of the population. Some Flemish politicians regret that a number of Dutch-speaking people behave more as French-speakers and vote for French-speaking political parties. It is not unusual to see billboards along the roads in the Flemish region outside Brussels that strongly encourage the Flemish to speak Dutch when they are in Brussels: “Do not be ashamed to speak your language in Brussels”.

A number of Flemish politicians contest the francophone claims that 80-85% of the population would be native French-speakers. According to them, Brussels is a city of linguistic minorities--a phenomenon due to the immigration from Africa, Asia and America and to the presence of officials from European institutions-- and if the immigrants have chosen to speak French, the dominant language, it is in fact not their mother tongue.

The Flemish affirm that Brussels was originally a Dutch-speaking city but that from the beginning of the 19th century until 1980 it gradually became French-speaking because of various historical factors. According to them, that process has now stopped. Twenty years ago, only 10% of the children in Brussels were in Dutch-speaking schools but it was a tradition in Flemish families to send one’s children to French-speaking schools so that they can become bilingual. Their number has now increased to 20% but there is now a tendency among the French-speakers to send their children to Dutch-speaking schools so that they can compete with the Flemish on Brussels job market.

The political representation of the Dutch-speaking political parties in Brussels

In the various communes of the Brussels-Capital Region, the Dutch-speaking parties only scored about 12-13% at the last communal elections against about 17% at the Brussels Parliament elections. Consequently, the Dutch-speaking Belgians are politically always in the minority at the Brussels Parliament and in communal councils. Moreover, they complain that they need more votes than the francophones to get a seat at the Brussels Parliament. That picture of the political situation, however, needs a number of corrections.

The Brussels Parliament now consists of 64 French-speaking and 11 Dutch-speaking members. With two ministers out of five and one state secretary on two, the Dutch-speaking parties are not far from their final objective of parity. With the Lombard Agreements, the number of Dutch-speaking and French-speaking members will be respectively increased to 17 (20% of all the seats) and to 72 at the next elections.

Decisions in the Brussels government are taken by consensus. In the Brussels Parliament, however, decisions are taken with a simple majority and the Dutch-speaking parties would like decisions to be taken with a double majority, one in each linguistic group.

In the communes, decisions are taken with a simple majority. With the Lombard Agreements, the communes that will appoint a Dutch-speaking councillor in the communal council will receive more financial means (from 500,000 to 2,500,000 Euros) from the federal government (where the Dutch-speaking members are in the majority). It can be expected that French-speaking parties will put a Dutch-speaking candidate in a good position on their electoral lists to avoid that the seat falls in the hands of a Dutch-speaking party.

French-speaking politicians have lodged complaints against the Lombard Agreements with the Court of Arbitration, a quasi-constitutional court, on the ground that the principle of equality is violated.

The communes with facilities

The 1962-1963 language laws demarcated and fixed the language boundary that is still valid today. This was purely a political deal and the concerned populations were not involved. The same laws provided for linguistic facilities for the inhabitants of 27 communes contiguous to a different linguistic region, who have the right to request that, in their dealings with the authorities (regarding i.e. administrative matters, education, and relations between employers and their employees), language other than that of the region in which the communes are located should be used. Since a constitutional amendment adopted in 1988, the linguistic facilities in these 27 communes cannot be changed except by a federal law with a special majority.

Six of the 27 communes with facilities lie on Flemish territory in the Brussels periphery. They count a large share, sometimes a majority, of French-speaking inhabitants (40,000

in all). Though the official language in these communes is Dutch, these inhabitants have the right to request that, in their dealings with the public authorities, French be used.

80,000 French-speakers also live in other communes in the periphery of Brussels on Flemish territory but do not enjoy any specific rights.

Many Flemish politicians argue as a general principle that Belgians living on Flemish territory are Flemish, whatever their mother tongue (Turkish, Arabic, French…), and must use the official language of the region, namely Dutch. In a former political deal, they accepted a special status for the communes with facilities but in exchange, they expect the French-speaking residents to integrate into the local community, learn the Dutch language and the Flemish history. The Flemish government would like to have more freedom of decision on the communes with facilities and to strengthen its sacred territoriality principle. “Laws are to be determined by the host and not by the guests”, they say.

Political conflicts between Flemish authorities and communal authorities regularly arise in communes with facilities whilst there is usually peaceful coexistence between French- and Flemish-speaking inhabitants.

Linguistic problems

In 1998, a conflict arose when the Flemish government started restricting, as far as legally possible, the use of the linguistic facilities with the aim of reinforcing the Flemish, Dutch-speaking character of the region, including the six communes in question. The contested circular letter of the Minister of Interior of the Flemish government, Mr Leo Peeters, instructed these communes only to issue documents in French “every time an individual has made the express demand”, which was contrary to the practice that the individual inhabitant only had to demand once that all documentation be sent to him in French.

In communes with facilities, Dutch language schools in principle accept all pupils, both from outside the commune in question and of French-speaking parents. However, a child may only be enrolled in a French language school in the six communes on the condition that the parents are residents of the commune in question and that the head of family declares that the French language is the child’s mother or usual tongue. The language inspectorate may challenge the correctness of this declaration, as a result of which it seems the child can be expelled from the French-speaking school. This practice is however not consistent with the 23 July 1968 decision of the European Court which stipulated that children of parents not resident in the six communes with linguistic facilities in the Brussels periphery should nevertheless be allowed to attend the French-speaking schools in these communes.

Other concrete problems have arisen in communes with facilities within recent years:

a) The language to be used in communal councils where the mayor and most councillors are French-speaking is sometimes a source of controversy. According to the Flemish government, the facilities only apply to the administrated and not to the administrators and therefore only Dutch may be spoken in the council of the commune. According to the French Community, citing a decision of the Court of Arbitration of 10 March 1998, claims that the obligation to speak Dutch only extends to the mayor and his deputies, not to individual councillors.

b) According to a decree of the Flemish parliament, public libraries can only be subsidised if at least 75% of the books are in Dutch. The result has been the establishment of private libraries in some of the communes with facilities (with more than 25% of French books). Some communes gave modest subsidies to these private libraries but this gave rise to much protest from Flemish politicians. In 1998, Minister Leo Peeters threatened to close the public library of the commune Wezembeek-Oppem because only 57% of the books were in Dutch and the Flemish Minister of Culture instructed his administration to withdraw the library’s accreditation as of 1 January 1999.

c) The situation is similar with regard to youth associations and cultural organisations. The distribution of a French language magazine, “Carrefour”, in these six communes, is very disputed. This magazine, Flemish politicians allege, is subsidised to the tune of 260,000 Euro by the French Community, which they consider a flagrant violation of the territoriality principle.

d) The diffusion of French-speaking television channels has also become a source for dispute. “Télé-Bruxelles”, a French-speaking regional TV channel, is not allowed to broadcast outside the Brussels-Capital Region. Several TV programmes from France have been eliminated by the communal cable-distributors.

e) The question of social housing has also raised some problems in these six communes. Apparently, social housing is preferentially accorded to the autochthonous population, who have to show a strong link with the Flemish periphery, which is interpreted locally as sending children to Dutch language schools, being members of Dutch-speaking cultural organizations, etc.

f) At the end of 2001, the mayor of Wezembeek-Oppem received a letter from the Finance Minister of the Flemish government ordering him to reimburse the residents of his commune a local tax because the document had been drafted in French and not in Dutch.

In 25 years’ time, the Permanent Linguistic Control Commission (created in 1963) treated about 2,000 complaints; only ten of the Commission’s decisions were contested.

Fear for “Frenchification” of parts of Flemish territory

On the Flemish side, there is a general fear that the “Frenchification” of Brussels may extend to the communes with facilities and other periphery communes on Flemish territory. That explains why all Flemish political parties unanimously reject the idea to solve the problems of the French-speaking populations in the communes with facilities through their integration into a bigger Brussels-Capital Region in exchange for a better political representation of the Dutch-speaking population in the Brussels institutions.

This fear is reinforced by the fact that more and more French-speaking residents of Brussels leave the capital city and settle in the (Dutch-speaking) periphery where they might refuse integration and claim linguistic facilities once they become numerous enough.

Ratification of the Framework Convention on National Minorities

Flemish parties refuse to ratify the Convention because they say there are no minorities in Belgium or they only envisage it if there is a clausula saying that the French-speaking population in the periphery of Brussels is not a minority. One of the reasons pushed forward is that most of the French-speakers in disputed communes on Flemish territory are immigrants from Brussels and Wallonia. Another reason is that French-speaking residents on Flemish territory are French-speaking Flemish.

1 The first rapporteur was Mr Dumeni Columberg (Switzerland), Group of the European People’s Party. His report was published on 4 September 1998 (Doc. 8182). The second rapporteur is Mrs Lili Nabholz-Haidegger. She visited Belgium in September 2001.

2 Mr Rufin Grijp (SP.A), Mr Sven Gatz (VLD-VU-O), Mr Walter Vandenbossche (CD&V) and Erik Arckens (Vlaams Blok). Click on their names to have the text of their interviews in Dutch.