U.S. English Foundation Research
BELGIUM
Language Research
3. Language issues: Where does one observe language to be a problem in the country?
The situation in Belgium is very different from the majority of the countries in Europe. There are three linguistic communities - French, Flemish and German in Belgium and three regions - Brussels-Capital, the Flemish Region and the Walloon Region. The country is further divided into 10 provinces and 589 municipalities. The territory of Brussels-Capital Region is bilingual, French/Dutch. The Flemish Region is officially Dutch speaking. The Walloon Region encompasses French-speaking territory and the German-speaking cantons. In the Brussels-Capital Region, the French and Flemish Communities may both exercise their own discretion in regards to people and institutions, according to the language in question.
On a national level, the legislative bodies consist of a House of Representatives and a Senate. Each region and community has its own parliament known as a Council. The State, the Regions and the Communities each have their own government, made up of Ministers and, in certain cases, State Secretaries.
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Updated (January 2003)
In Belgium multilingualism is very common. Since the 1998 Decree, which made learning of the second language (either Dutch or English) obligatory from the 5th grade in Wallonie, Dutch has been neglected because schools could decide which language they will choose and usually they preferred English.
The so-called Braun Report1 stresses the current poor knowledge of foreign languages amongst the French-speaking community and proposes solutions based on both foreign and Belgian scientific research. Braun argues that starting in kindergartens, this early exposure to other languages stimulates children's motivation to learn them when they become obligatory subjects later on in schooling.
Once they become obligatory (at present, a second language is obligatory from the 3rd year of primary schools in Brussels and from the 5th year in Wallonie), the Braun report recommends the immersion method of education, i.e. teaching certain subjects such as Geography, History, etc in the foreign language. Dutch, the mother tongue of around 60 percent of Belgians, should be the first language learned after the mother tongue. The second foreign language should be one of the international languages (English or Spanish).
Source: Eurolang News, Brussels, January 10, 2003, by Hannah McGlue, http://217.136.252.147/webpub/eurolang/pajenn.asp?ID=4029
1 The report written up by professor Alain Braun from the University of Mons-Hainaut at the request of the parliament's president, François Scheppers.
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Updated (February 2005)
CRISIS BETWEEN FLEMISH (DUTCH) AND WALLOON (FRENCH) COMMUNITIES
Since January 2005 the relationship between the Flemish and the Walloons in the federal Parliament of Belgium has deteriorated. This situation was caused by the tension over the Brussels Region, which is the only bilingual region in the country.
The population of Brussels can vote both for Flemish and Walloon political parties. Recently the Flemish parties claimed for two "border" municipalities currently belonging to Brussels (Hal and Vilvoorde) to be attached to the Flemish Region. However, the French politicians are opposed to this proposal since it would "break" the last link between the French speaking population living in the capital and those settled in the Flemish suburbs nearby.
The Belgian political system has always been quite complicated. The coexistence of the Dutch-speaking majority and the French-speaking minority has been a source of conflicts for a long time. The State has guaranteed the two communities an equal status (there are two linguistic groups in the federal Parliament, special majority laws, which deal with the state structure, can only be adopted by a majority in each linguistic group).
The Belgian Constitution has established the federal state (represented by the federal parliament) with several communities and regions. Each community and region has its own directly elected council and its government what enables them to approve their laws (decrees) on a number of specific matters and to ensure their implementation.
Source: Mercator News, January 2005, http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/index-gb.htm
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Updated (April 2005)
BRUSSELS (HALLE-VILVOORDE) PROBLEM PARALYZING BELGIAN POLITICS
The language debate on the constituency of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde continues to paralyze Belgian politics. Some even say that the Belgium state may disintegrate because of it.
Brussels and the Flemish towns of Halle and Vilvoorde are joined into one constituency that extends over two regions: Dutch-speaking Flanders and the bilingual capital region. This entails that Walloon political parties can run for federal and European elections in the entire constituency, even though part of it lies in monolingual Flanders. The fact that the growing French-speaking population of Halle and Vilvoorde can vote for Walloon parties on the Flemish territory contravenes the Belgian constitution. For the last thirty years Flemish have been striving to divide Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde with the main objective to stem this increasing influence of the French language in Flanders. Walloon parties, however, refuse to obey the constitution because dividing Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde would mean a loss of their electoral power and besides that the Flemish character of the municipalities around Brussels would have to be recognized.
The irony is that dividing the constituency might prove to be harmful for the declining Flemish-speaking population in Brussels which, without a link to the Dutch speakers in Halle and Vilvoorde, will be increasingly in a minority1. For the last couple of years the Flemish community, using adverts on radio and television, has been encouraging Flemish people to move to Brussels but it is not clear yet whether the initiative has had any effect.
The structure of the Belgian state is relatively complex. The country is divided into three regions: the Flemish region (Dutch-speaking), the Walloon region (French-speaking) and Brussels, the capital, which is officially bilingual. The regions are authorized to deal with territorial matters such as economic and environmental issues.
There are also three communities which do not coincide with the regions: a Dutch-speaking community in the north, a French-speaking community in the south and a small German-speaking community in the southeast. Each region and community has its own government. Political parties do not exist on a federal level. Even though Flemish parties have their Walloon counterparts, they remain separate.
The federal, Flemish and Walloon governments currently have to work together to come up with a solution for Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. The situation is getting even more complicated after José Happart, the chairman of the Walloon government and a former Voeren mayor, proposed to put the issue of this Flemish town on the agenda.
Before the official establishment of language boundaries in 1961-1963, Voeren lay in the French-speaking part of the country, although the majority of its inhabitants spoke Dutch. Mr Happart has always defended the French-speaking minority living here, which led to a range of conflicts in the seventies and eighties. In 1986, after he repeatedly refused to speak Dutch, he was forced to resign. Currently Mr Happart wants a bi-regional status for the town, what would mean that inhabitants can choose freely between being Flemish or Walloon.
However other Flemish mayors believe that the issues of Voeren and Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde are not linked. It is hoped that the present crisis will not lead to riots such as in Voeren twenty years ago.
Source: Eurolang News, Antwerp, April 4, 2005, by Philippe Nuyts & Kathleen Engels, http://www.eurolang.net/news.asp?id=4980
- Only one fifth of the people living in Brussels are Dutch-speakers.
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Updated (June 2005)
BELGIAN LANGUAGE DEBATE PUT ON HOLD
A decision on how to solve a high-profile language problem in Belgium has been put off for another two years since Flemish and Walloon negotiators failed to reach agreement on dividing the constituency of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. The problem has been moved from federal to the Flemish government now. Wallonian politicians asked to freeze all language and community related debates until after the next elections in 2007.
As we informed in the update for April, Brussels and the Flemish towns of Halle and Vilvoorde are joined into one constituency that extends over two regions: Dutch-speaking Flanders and the bilingual capital region. As a result the growing number of French-speakers moving to Flanders can vote for Walloon parties on the Flemish territory and this contravenes the Belgian constitution. The Flemish want to see the constituency split with the objective of stemming the growing influence of the French language in Flanders. The Walloons demand that French-speakers living in Flanders could vote for Walloon parties in Brussels. Thus the bilingual capital region would be enlarged and it would border Wallonia. This last demand is unacceptable for Flemish negotiators who recognized that it would be far worse than splitting Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde.
Source: Eurolang News, Antwerp, May 16, 2005, by Kathleen Engels, http://www.eurolang.net/news.asp?id=5021
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Updated (October 2007)
LANGUAGE DISPUTE OVER THE USE OF FRENCH IN PUBLIC MEETINGS
Olivier Maingain, head of the radical Francophile party FDF, had called on all the Flemish municipalities with “Linguistic Facilities” to speak French at their municipal council meetings.
The municipalities of Kraainem, Linkebeek and Wezembeek–Oppem obliged and part of their council meetings was conducted in French even though their step has broken the law governing “Linguistic Facilities” – speaking language other than Dutch at official meetings is forbidden.
Councilors were voting on three issues:
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The nomination of mayors not recognized by Flemish regional authorities because they had submitted their electoral papers in French
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A demand for the three communities to be included in the bilingual Brussels region; and
- A demand to proclaim the right to speak French in council meetings.
When one councilor began to read the demands in French, he was interrupted by an opponent from the right–wing party, Vlaams Belang.
This linguistic dispute has only underlined the present crisis that Belgium faces, as the State has had no government since the June elections. Flemish and French–speaking parties remain at odds about the need for far–reaching state reforms – including the sensitive issue of further devolution. The country is deeply divided along linguistic lines – the richer north is Flemish–speaking Flanders, the south of the country (Wallonia) is poorer and French speaking, and bilingual Brussels, the capital located in Flanders, is mainly French–speaking.
Wallonia and Flanders have little in common with their respective populations reading different newspapers, watching different TV stations and having different cultural references. Each side, however, on the negotiation table consider their demands to be reasonable and perceive the demands by their linguistic rivals as excessive.
Source: Eurolang News, October 24, 2007 by Davyth Hicks http://www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2970&Itemid=1&lang=en
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Updated (June 2008)
NEW BATTLE OVER THE LANGUAGE
Flemish Minister of Interior Administration, Marino Keulen, met with representatives of the Council of Europe in May to justify the decision not to appoint three democratically elected mayors of Kraainem, Wezembeek-Oppem and Linkebeek municipalities.
Keulen argued that the mayors have broken the law when they distributed French rather than Dutch election forms to French speaking electors during the 2006/2007 campaigns.
He insisted that the municipalities although predominantly inhabited by French speakers who elect French-speaking representatives and request the administration address them in French are still part of the Flemish region, which legally requires using Dutch as a first language in administration. According to the Minister, their act was contrary to the federal language legislation, to the provincial governor's guidelines and to the “Peeters circular” determining that all municipal government documents must first be distributed in Dutch and then in French, only if formally requested by the inhabitants.
Source: New Europe, May 19, 2008 http://www.neurope.eu/articles/86631.php
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