BELGIUM: Belgian election turns Brussels into linguistic and cultural battleground

Record ID: 825898

  • Title: BELGIUM: Belgian election turns Brussels into linguistic and cultural battleground
  • Date: 11th June 2010
  • Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (MAY 16, 2010) (REUTERS) PEOPLE MARCHING WITH BELGIAN FLAGS URGING BOTH SIDES TO UNITE/ MAN DRESSED IN BELGIAN FLAG COLOURS WITH WRITING ON HIS BACK READING 'Apocalypse Now 2012' AND POSTER OF THE BELGIAN KING WITH LOGO 'Don't touch my country' (French) SHOUTING 'Unity is Strength!' (French) TWO MEN ON A SINGLE BICYCLE WITH HANDLEBARS ON OPPOSITE SIDES
  • Embargoed: 26th June 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA1GSYQ1S7RJKAVZN2YSPNRTJGX
  • Story Text: A clash over the electoral boundaries in and around the Belgian capital Brussels sparked the collapse of the government in April and has led to a parliamentary election to be held on Sunday (June 13).
    Political parties on both sides of the regional and linguistic divide are fighting it out to either split in two or remain united. And hundreds of thousands of people say they feel their country is being hijacked by politicians neglecting what they see is the urgent need for economic reform, strong employment policies and social stability.
    Thousands demonstrated in Brussels just three weeks after the government fell calling for a united Belgium and demanding Flemish and francophone politicians stop tearing each other and the country apart.
    Belgium is split horizontally into the Dutch-speaking Flanders region in the north and French speakers in the less economically prosperous Wallonia region to the south.
    Although the issues political parties are trying to resolve boil down to how much power should be devolved to the regions of Flanders and Wallonia most of the attention has focused on the capital city and its region known as the Brussels Region.
    Brussels and the electoral area immediately around the capital has a unique, bi-lingual status and that -- rather than the debt crisis that is most on the minds of other European countries -- has dominated the agenda ahead of the election.
    Opinion polls forecast the largest gainer in the vote will be Flemish separatist party N-VA, which advocates the gradual disappearance of Belgium, citing the 1993 break-up of Czechoslovakia as a model for clean divorces.
    The Dutch speakers, who make up 60 percent of Belgium's population, complain their language and culture are threatened by the spread of French from the capital region. French speakers say the defence of Dutch can be mean-spirited and petty.
    Analysts say the region around Brussels is a very important political symbol; it's more than just the language border, it's about how French and Dutch speakers deal with one another.
    Lennik is one battle ground -- almost a suburb of Brussels it sits in the Hal-Vilvoorde community. Together these are referred to as the BHV - Brussels-Hal-Vilvoorde - problem.
    The bi-lingual BHV is in Flanders but the number of Francophones living here is increasing.
    The mayor of Lennik Willy de Wael considers the June 13 elections illegal and has forbidden to put up any campaign posters.
    He believes the 9,000-strong commune should split from the bi-lingual status and re-join Dutch speaking Flanders which would mean people living here could only vote for Flemish candidates and all local and administrative issues would be in Dutch.
    All the Belgian flags that once stood in front of the mayor's house are now Flemish.
    "I want a free Flanders. That's very clear. Because I have noticed, that even Flanders, its parliament, does not have the control over its own jurisdiction. They are blocked by trustees from another district or community. This can't go on. What is going on in parliament is that they pulled the 'alarm bell'. After three years of conflicting interests, we can no longer call it democracy. Here a minority is blocking a majority. That is the end of the system," de Wael says.
    Kraainem is another battleground with a majority of French speakers but inside Flanders.
    Kraainem's mayor, Arnold d'Oreye de Lantremange, is frustrated that a Flemish official attends all council meetings to ensure that none of the majority francophone members speak French and that the library will only qualify for a subsidy if three-quarters of the books are in Dutch.
    "To take a concrete example: the library. We could be a Flemish library but then we would need to have 75 percent of our books in Flemish. Who will come to the library when I have 80 percent of Francophones? The libraries will be empty. So today's libraries function thanks to communal subsidies and charity," he says.
    Indeed, although he occupies the office marked "mayor", the Flemish government refused to give D'Oreye de Lantremange that title after he sent voting leaflets in French to francophone voters, flouting Flemish language rules.
    Flemish parties are united in wanting to split Brussels from the surrounding region. It is currently one district in which the electorate has a right to vote for either French- or Dutch-speaking parties.
    French-speaking parties say this is fine as long as the districts with majorities of francophones are attached to Brussels. Otherwise, they say, some 150,000 French speakers would lose the right to use their mother tongue. But for Flemish leaders, an expansion of Brussels is unacceptable.
    The rules governing these special communities known as 'communities with facilities' date back to 1963, when lawmakers drew a line across the country formally separating the Dutch and French speaking areas, with Brussels left bilingual and a German-speaking group to the east.
    Six communes outside Brussels, including Kraainem and Lennik, were given a special status, allowing their majority French-speaking inhabitants extra rights, such as to defend themselves in a court or to marry in their own language.
    Flemish leaders say that Dutch speakers get no such special treatment in French-speaking parts of the country.
    In the streets and cafes inside the B-H-V people say the problem is not that they don't get on with one another. It is more a question of different perceptions about what their fundamental right.
    But some admit it is very difficult to explain why the two sides are fighting.
    "For the moment the problem is between two separate conceptions of rights: the right of the land and the right of people. For Flanders, it is the right of the land, it is a Germanic right, and which they absolutely refuse to give up and for the Francophones it is the right of people," says one drinker in a bar.
    He adds; "I am of Walloon origin, living in Brussels and I consider myself Belgian. There is no incoherence there. You can have different identities. Just like Russian dolls."
    One of his companions says the issue is primarily a political problem. "I don't think it's a problem between people or the people who live here. For me it's a problem of occupied territories and it's not easy to explain in a few words. It's very complicated," he says.
    The far-right Vlaams Belang, forecast to win about 15 percent of the vote in Flanders, denounces what it calls a Nazi-style "Anschluss" (annexation) by French speakers of Flemish territory in their push for "Lebensraum" (living space).
    To make his point, Vlaams Belang leader Philip de Winter hung a banner over the road leading into Rhode-Saint-Genese after the commune joined itself to the Brussels region in order to give its francophones voters the right to choose francophone candidates.
    "To the colonising politics of Milquet and Co amongst the Francophones we say nee, we say non, we say niet. Never. Thank you for coming. Here stops Brussels and here starts Flanders," said de Winter to the cars driving past the sign.
    Financial markets may indicate Belgium's debt, set to rise above 100 percent of gross domestic product this year, should be the top issue, but debate has centred on the future of the country itself.
    This week (June 8) 12,500 public sector workers marched on Brussels during a one-day strike action.
    As in Spain, they want better salaries and working conditions at a time of profound crisis. Many people say it is only a matter of time before the government announces austerity measures and that they would rather feel them now than sink into a deeper crisis later.
    "I think that, for the moment, they are dealing with the BHV. But BHV is one thing. The protection of social security and the labour market that is another thing. People are always talking about saving and austerity but we would do better to help invest in health care," said Bicker Marie Paul representing a health workers union.
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