January 2005

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CRISIS IN BELGIUM BETWEEN THE FLEMISH AND WALLOON COMMUNITIES

January 2005 — On 25th January, the Belgian King Albert II addressed a communication to the French and Flemish speaking population calling for an understanding of both communities, since the relationship between the two communities has been tense during the past two weeks. “In a multicultural country, the true courage consists on favouring a common understanding, collaboration and comprehension”, said the Belgian monarch on TV.

Currently, at political level, the Flemish and the Walloons have a tense relationship in the federal Parliament of Belgium, more specifically when it comes to the issue of the electoral circumscription of Brussels, the only bilingual circumscription where the population can vote indistinctively for Flemish and Walloon parties. The Flemish parties claim for two ‘border’ municipalities belonging currently to Brussels (Hal and Vilvoorde). If their request is finally accepted, the Flemish circumscription would be enlarged. However, the French-speaking politicians are opposed to this proposal since it would “break” the last link between the French speaking population living in the capital and the one settled in the Flemish suburbs of the Belgian capital.

The Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt also asked for co-operation last Tuesday between the two linguistic communities, particularly concerning the issue of Hal and Vilvoorde.

The Belgian political system has always been quite complicated. The coexistence in a same country of two major communities -a Dutch-speaking majority and a French speaking minority- has been a source of conflicts for a long time. The State’s structures have been designed to guarantee an equal status of the two communities: There are, for instance, two linguistic groups in the federal Parliament, a French one and a Dutch one. So-called special majority laws, which deal with the state structure, can only be adopted by a majority in each linguistic group. Therefore, these laws can not be adopted without the consent of the French-speaking minority (in Belgium the majority of the population is Flemish). The Belgian Constitution established a federal state (represented by a federal parliament) with communities and regions. Each community and each region has its own directly elected council and its government: they make their own laws (decrees) on a number of specific matters and also ensure their implementation.