Statute and stakes of Brussels-Capital

The statute of Brussels, capital of the Belgium, and the Région of Brussels-Capital is one of the key stakes of the Belgian Fédéralisme which sees the confrontation of both principal Communautés of Belgium. At the same time area very definitely French-speaking and officially bilingual, wedged in the Flemish Area, Brussels-Capital is in the middle of the many political and institutional dilemmas in Belgium, in particular with regard to the future of the country (in particular in the event of independence of the Flanders which surrounds it territorialement). Important divergences exist, at the same time between Dutch-speaking and French-speaking, and within these groups themselves one meets of it between regionalistic unitarists and .

Brussels, multiple capital

Brussels assumes the role of capital for many entities. One thinks of course of it like sits of the European Union (role shared with Strasbourg and Luxembourg) of which it lodges many institutions, but it is also the capital of the Belgium. Within a complex federal system, this bilingual city-area is at the same time the capital of the French Communauté (qualified in the area of French language and for the French-speaking matters in area of Brussels) and of the Flemish Communauté (qualified in area of language Dutchwoman and for the Dutch-speaking matters in area of Brussels).

Where the things become complicated, it is that institutions of the Flemish community, of which the Flemings of Brussels form part, and those of the Flemish Région, of which Brussels does not form part, amalgamated as of their creation in a unit to which one often refers under the name of Flanders, and which the Flemish Région does not have of capital distinct from that Flemish community chose.

Certain French-speaking people hardly appreciate that Brussels is also presented like the capital of the Flanders (and not of only the Flemish Communauté ). This fusion between community and Flemish area thus had as a consequence that Brussels became de facto also the capital of the Flemish area, a political entity of which Brussels does not form part and who is not any competent on the territory of the area of Brussels-Capital. This strange situation is source of political tensions between French-speaking and Dutch-speaking persons in charge.

Voluntarism of Brussels

Near the agents of Brussels French-speaking like the minister-president Charles Picqué (socialist), in the ecologists and the majority of the contractors of Brussels, one finds a voluntarist definition of Brussels. For them, Brussels is a city mainly French-speaking, but with an international vocation and multiple minorities. They thus wish to coexist correctly with the Flemings, the two communities profiting there from the equal rights. This point of view is rather coherent with the Constitution (which recognize there the two communities with identical competences) and with reality on the ground.

At the institutional level, that results in institutions of each community like the Flemish Community Commission (VGC) and the French Community Commission (COCOF), famous recently French-speaking Parlement of Brussels , profiting from a broad autonomy of management.

These French-speaking people stress nevertheless an absolute autonomy of the institutions of the area like the Parliament and the government of Brussels. They fear at the same time the interference of the Wallons, and even more that of the Flemings external with the Area. In this debate, the double significance of the “Flemish” word creates a certain confusion: Flemish as citizen of the Flemish community (which can be Flemish of Brussels very well) or Flemish like resident in an external territory, the Flemish area. (In the same way a Walloon, having moved in Brussels can assert Wallon there.)

The very large majority of the elected officials of Brussels French-speaking estimates that Brussels must remain a " area with share entière" , an entity federated with its current institutional reality, on the same foot and with same competences as the two other areas. The majority of the Flemish elected officials of Brussels have a different opinion (see in bottom).

However, Brussels always does not have the critical mass to assume these responsibilities, as testify some the problems structural of the administration for employment (Actiris) or the treatment of toxic waste. The rate of extremely high Unemployment among the Inhabitants of Brussels and the big problems of circulation largely exceeds the framework of the Area and must be dealt with broader manner. (Knowing that 70% of the people working in the area of Brussels are not resident there)

The analysis that the French-speaking people of this problem make is generally that the central problem is the size of the Area which does not include its economic hinterland. Certain French-speaking people evoke the widening of the Area consequently. The number of coveted communes strongly varies: some want mainly to add common the linguistic peripherals profiting from Facilités for the French-speaking people (and where the French-speaking people constitute the majority of the population besides), others a dozen Flemish communes, even all the Rand of Brussels. Obviously, any expansion would be especially made with the detriment of the Flemish area, in which Brussels is completely wedged, even if some propose to also add some communes of the Brabant-Walloon and even if certain projects considered consider only the addition of the communes necessary to disenclose Brussels. These plans generally privilege an alliance between the French-speaking people of Brussels with the Walloons.

Flemish side, any expansion is regarded as unacceptable at the most point, that of which the majority of the French-speaking people are perfectly conscious. However, the question of the scission of the electoral district of Brussels-Hall-Vilvorde, which failed to explode the federal coalition at the end of 2004, caused in the political community of Brussels French-speaking a resurgence of the requests for extension of the borders of the area.

A Call of Brussels and a Walloon Answer

The newspaper the Evening published on Wednesday, December 20 2006 the text of a call, heading We exist! presented the day before to the press, and signed by a hundred personalities of Brussels of foreground among which Mateo Alaluf, Jean-Baptiste Baronian, Philippe Van Parijs, Claude Javeau, Jacques De Decker, François Schuiten, Guy Haarscher, Jean-Marc Ferry, Benoît Dejemeppe, Benoît Peeters, Riccardo Petrella, Axelle Red, Claude Semal, Olivier Strebelle, Thierry Tinlot… who claims the taking into account of the interests of the Inhabitants of Brussels from the point of view of the institutional negotiations programmed for the year 2007 . The text which describes a Région of Brussels-Capital multicultural and complex invites the agents of Brussels to defend of them the interests whatever their languages or origins, beyond the Community confrontations, the Inhabitants of Brussels to sign the call and the negotiators to be granted to Brussels, as with the other Areas, the capacity to forge its future, … like hearth of a dynamism benefitting the three areas from the country . The text requires clearly more area (at base space and nonlinguistic), and less community (at linguistic base), which refers to the current Belgian institutional system although the call We exist places ourselves beyond the institutional one.

With this Call, more than one hundred of Walloon personalities answered in the affirmative on May 7th, in particular Lise Thiry, Nicole Malinconi, Paul Meyer, Caroline Lamarche, Jacques Dubois, Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, Guy Denis, Jean Louvet, Luc Courtois, Jean Germain, Philippe Destatte, Jean Louvet, Nicolas Ancion, Daniel Seret, Jean-Claude Vandermeren , General secretary of Walloon FGTB, Armand Delcampe directing of the theater Jean Vilar and the Festival of Spa… The Walloon text quotes the Call of Brussels and its signatories approve it.

A Flemish optics

The majority of the Flemings, including the whole of the Flemish parties except the Vlaams Belang, and, recently, N-VA, consider Brussels as a city that they divide with the French-speaking people, the two communities profiting there from the equal rights.

In comparison with the moderated French-speaking people, these Flemings stress more the need of a good co-operation between the institutions of the metropolis and the two great communities, on a neutrality of the capital in the difficult relations between Flemings and French-speaking people, that the role of capital implies a co-operation with the federated institutions, and on the need for the Flemish government for being able to exert its " protection" on the Flemings of Brussels.

It is also accordingly, and as a sign of " solidarité" with the Flemish minority in Brussels, and within the framework of its autonomy guaranteed by the Belgian constitution, that the Flemish Parlement chose to invest this city like capital of the Flanders (decision taken unanimously).

These moderate Flemings regard Brussels an area with share and not as an area with whole share, the equal management of the capital being the counterweight of the equal management of the Belgian State, where the French-speaking people are minority. They wish for this area a coadministration at the same time by the French-speaking people and the Dutch-speaking ones.

The very large majority of the Flemish elected officials of Brussels follows this line (except those of Vlaams Belang, to see low). The majority of the Flemish elected officials of Brussels want to maintain Brussels like a level of management and decision autonomous and profiting from current competences. Nevertheless, they criticize the incidents between French-speaking persons in charge of the Area of Brussels and the Flanders. They insist on the fact that Brussels, like capital of the country, must privilege this federator role of capital for all the Belgians. Consequently, Brussels should remain neutral in the conflicts between French-speaking and Flemish parties and the communities French-speaking person and Flemish.

Assumptions on the statute of Brussels-Capital in the possibility of an independent Flemish State

The possibility of the independence of the Flanders in the short or the long term, considered to be realistic by several Belgian and foreign political observers, including by the current Minister-President of the Flanders, raises several assumptions with regard to the future and the future status of the Région of Brussels-Capital , wedged in Flemish territory, if this possibility would be carried out. These assumptions is evoked, discussed, considered by the various actors of the political life and social of Brussels and Belgian (newspapers; reviews; political debates; etc), without at the present time a consensus in this debate emerging; assumptions varying according to the linguistic or political sensitivities. At the present time, the freedom fighters represent a minority of the population in Flanders, although considerable. If the Flanders became a sovereign country, certain Belgian French-speaking, with regard to the case of Brussels, would be in favor to preserve reduced Belgium independent (Area of Brussels and Walloon region) with maintenance of the constitutional monarchy; others would be in favor of a fastening of Brussels and Wallonia in France. At the Dutch-speaking ones of Flanders, the opinions are also divided when this question is mentioned: some would wish the fastening of Brussels at the Flemish State become independent; others would accept that Brussels is not any more the capital of the Flemish Community of Belgium (and that the Area of Brussels is not attached to the Flanders) n the other hand independence; some would be favorable to the creation of a “European district” in the place of the current area of Brussels-Capital. These questions relate to in a fundamental way the Area of Brussels-Capital, because of the consequences on the major reorganization of the country which this independence would involve.

The solution of the " type; fédéral" from Belgium with two areas (Brussels and Wallonia)

This assumption is rather evoked in French-speaking Belgium. It privileges, in the possibility of an independent Flanders, the maintenance of an independent Belgian State composed of the two areas federated mainly French-speaking (Brussels and Wallonia). It is articulated around several elements:

a bringing together with the Walloon region

The question of Brussels east in the middle of the important files discussed in Belgium from the point of view of the elections for 2007 and beyond. With the assembled independantism to Flanders since the middle of the years 1990, phenomenon having consequences on the political life in Brussels and the taking into account of this political factor , more and more of Inhabitant of Brussels are declared favorable to a bringing together limited with the “French-speaking sister of the south” , i.e. the Walloon region, while wishing to be able to preserve close and privileged economic relations with the close Flanders.

identity of Brussels as asserted by the inhabitants of the Area

If the Inhabitants of Brussels wish to approach the Walloons, it simply acts for them of a strategic bringing together , possibly policy if the Flanders separates, but which would not erase of anything specificity and absolute autonomy Area of Brussels. Concretely, it is not question, for any the political principal parties of Brussels, to propose nor to even consider a " rattachement" from Brussels to Wallonia, which would constitute a historical misinterpretation besides : the Inhabitants of Brussels are not Walloons, even if they are very mainly French-speaking, because they have different origins.

the maintenance of a federal union of Brussels with Wallonia: attachment common to Belgium

On the other hand, in particular if the Flanders chose its independence with regard to Belgium, the Inhabitants of Brussels could be tried by the maintenance of a federal union with Wallonia , in the same form as that which already currently exists: maintenance of the federated entities, i.e. the 2 Areas Walloon inhabitant of Brussels and, but also the German-speaking Community, and that would probably raise the question of the creation of an entity " The Flemish Community of Bruxelles" in order to respect and to guarantee the linguistic rights of the minority in Brussels.

This union, the country, would continue to be called " Belgique" , i.e. a Belgium without the Flemish Area (which would have decided to leave Belgium), formed Belgium of two areas instead of three currently.

Indeed, politically and culturally, the Inhabitants of Brussels like the Walloons remain very attached to Belgium : their feeling of membership as their honesty goes initially to Belgium, they are defined above all as Belgians and not as Bruxellois or Walloons. The Flemings, on the contrary, even those which are not in favor of the independence of the Flanders, regard themselves primarily as Flemings and not always Belgians.

an institutional compromise between Flemings and French-speaking people with respect to the linguistic minorities

Compared to Brussels, the majority of the Flemings would be favorable to such a solution , additional clause the independence of the Flanders, insofar as there would be the maintenance of a special statute for the Flemings of Brussels, in particular the official recognition of Brussels like city historically of Flemish culture Flemish but of primarily French-speaking character from now on ( but not exclusively ) French-speaking. An important part of the Flemish public opinion would not be favorable to a “pure and simple” fusion of Brussels with Wallonia; on the other hand certain freedom fighters would accept a federal bond between Wallonia and Brussels if the Flanders could become independent.

For the 100.000 Flemings minority of Brussels , who would find themselves in a French-speaking Belgian State of 4,3 million inhabitants (Wallonia and Brussels), they would be there important guarantees concerning their linguistic rights (right to teaching in their language, Community services in their language on the territory of Brussels and of the 19 communes, etc), in particular the recognition of Brussels like city historically of Flemish culture.

the 100.000 French-speaking people living in Flanders with the periphery of Brussels hope for that on this assumption they could profit from similar linguistic advantages, for example the maintenance of the 6 common to linguistic facilities, by measurement of reciprocity .

the enclave of Brussels: a non-problem?

The enclave of Brussels is separated from Wallonia by only a few kilometers, in fact by a thin Flemish strip of land (of which small the Forêt of Look after). By the road, the way between the two areas is however carried out in less than 5 minutes through the Flemish territory.
For the Inhabitants of Brussels and the large majority of the Walloons, it thus is not about an obstacle. If the Flanders became independent, the remainder of Belgium would be consisted two autonomous regions (Wallonia and Brussels): Brussels would be separated from Walloon Belgium in the same way that in Denmark, Copenhagen, located on an island, is separated from Jutland (the continental part of Denmark, comparable with Wallonia in this example) by a thin arm of the sea: that does not pose any particular problem for this country, since roads and bridges connect the two territories. Several democratic States are composed besides of enclaves.

With the freedom of movement of the goods and people into force in the European Union, the enclave of Brussels would seem viable on the assumption of an independent Flanders. The capital of this " Belgique" news; , would be to define, Brussels would not be the " capital of Wallonie" (this function would remain assured by the town of Namur) and would not be any more the " capital of Flandre".

questions of viability and succession of States in international law

To justify a possible independence of the Flanders, even " lointaine" , the Flemish authorities affirm that the Flemings form already a distinct nation compared to Belgium, that they have their own social model and their own national cultural project, as well as economic priorities and policies different from those of the French-speaking Belgians. On this assumption of a possible Flemish independence, there would be probably the creation of two new Sovereign states close and members to the European Union: on the one hand Flanders with its 5,9 million inhabitants; in addition the " nouvelle" Belgium, with its 4,3 million inhabitants and its two Autonomous regions and federate (Wallonia and Brussels-Capital).

The two States would be of dimension comparable with those of other small or average European States: for example Ireland (4,2 million inhabitants); Denmark (5,4 million inhabitants); Norway (4,6 million inhabitants); etc

The solution of the fastening of Brussels in France

It should be noted that some in Belgium have advanced another solution, to ask for the fastening of Brussels (and Wallonia) France in the case of the accession to the independence of the Flanders: they are called the " rattachistes" .

This " solution" a proposal not easily acceptable would constitute for the new Flemish State (and would cause tension between France and the Flanders), these detractors affirm in addition that it underestimates the attachment of the French-speaking Belgians with regard to their independent Belgian State and at its institutions.

The choice of the meeting of Brussels in France, called Réunionisme or rattachism (Belgian-French phrase expressing an active political current in 1830!), is not very influential in Brussels.

The solution of the " district européen"

Another assumption was suggested, in Flanders this time (always in the case of Flemish independence): to set up the area of Brussels-Capital in " district européen" , a little with the image of Washington, D.C. in the United States.

This option is considered, inter alia, by the former Minister-President of the Flanders, Mr. Yves Leterme, such as it supported it in a maintenance granted to the French daily newspaper " Libération" August 17th, 2006.

The solution of fastening in the Flanders

Certain Flemings are favorable to the fastening of Brussels to the Flanders if the latter separated from Belgium. Among the Flemish separatists, largely gathered within the Vlaams Belang (successor of the Vlaams Blok, started from nationalist Extreme-right-hand side Flemish dissolved in November 2004 following a judgment for Racism), of the N-VA, and certain elements of the CD&V, at Spirit, VLD and of SPa, several are indignant at the situation of the Flemings of Brussels who, according to them, would be confronted with a city where the existence of one crushing French-speaking majority causes the feeling of an ambient unilinguism whereas officially bilingualism is of setting (cfr. declarations of the minister PS of the Public health, Rudy Demotte, on the French-speaking unilinguism of the personnel of the hospitals of Brussels). See on this subject the " Proclamation for an independent Flanders in Europe" " Think tank; In Warande" resulting from the academic and economic mediums Flemish. The project of fastening of Brussels-Capital in the Flanders is regarded not very realistic by the moderated Flemings, and as unacceptable by a large majority of the French-speaking people.

Union with Wallonia and the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg

Last of the born assumptions, this scenario is defended by no political training, various arguments are presented in its favor:

the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg belonged to Belgium before its indépendence and took share with the Belgian revolution of 1830. Its territory was divided and formed the province of Luxembourg and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
In addition, part of German-speaking of Belgium rather considers a union with Luxembourg than with Germany or Wallonia.
French is also used in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg like lanque official.
At the economic level, Belgium and Luxembourg are in the Benelux countries (in addition to the European Union) and formed the old economic union Belgo-Luxembourgeoise.
Moreover, the large-ducal advantages compared to Belgium are reduced. Indeed, the difference between the taxation of the gasoline decreases, the withholding taxes in the banks will be harmonized with Belgium. Most of the Belgian capital leaving the Grand Duchy. Luxembourg in addition expects a reduction in its re-entry tax.
Lastly, the royal family is the same one as in Belqique. Indeed, the Henri Large-Duke is the nephew of the King Albert II.
In this optics, a State Wallonia-Brussels-Luxembourg would be viable. It would be composed of 3 or 4 entities federate (French-Dutch bilingual Brussels, the German Luxembourg French Grand Duche du Luxembourg trilingual, the French bilingual Community German-speaking German and French-speaking Wallonia). The weight enters Wallonia-Brussels and Luxembourg being still to decide.

In spite of the marginal character of this postulate, it caused the reaction of Luxembourg the Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, which declared that: the Grand Duchy does not have vocation to repair Belgium which seeks .

Reference

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