Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde
One peculiarity remaining after the reform is that inhabitants of the six municipalities with language facilities around Brussels can still choose to vote for electoral lists of the Brussels-Capital Region.
Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde has been the subject of a highly sensitive dispute within Belgium and was one of the main topics of the 2007–2011 Belgian political crisis.
Consequently, French-speakers living in the officially monolingual Dutch-speaking electoral district of Leuven in Flanders could vote for French-language parties in BHV, and Dutch-speakers living in the officially monolingual French-speaking electoral district Nivelles in Walloon Brabant could vote for Dutch-language parties in BHV.
In 2003, the Court of Arbitration ruled the BHV district to be unconstitutional, citing unequal voting rights.
The Brussels judicial and electoral arrondissement, corresponding to what became later Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde, has existed since the Belgian Revolution in 1830, when the country was created as a unitary state.
At that time, French was the only language in politics, administration, justice, the army and all education except primary, to the disadvantage of Dutch speakers.
[2] A municipality could ask the government to change its linguistic status by a royal decree only after a census would have shown a passage over the 30% or 50% threshold.
However, the process of deciding on the geographical position of such a static linguistic border led to bitter resentment, by both communities, including within political parties which had transcended language cleavages until then.
(Arguing that since 1947 many more people had shifted from Dutch to French, French-speaking Members of Parliament demanded that those six municipalities to be detached from the Dutch-speaking area and added to bilingual Brussels, which was fiercely resisted by their Flemish counterparts.)
The position of the linguistic border was endorsed in the 1970 State Reform (requiring a two-thirds majority) and, in return for contributing to this endorsement, the French-speaking minority was granted new measures which included the requirement of a special majority (a two-thirds majority in total and at least 50% in each linguistic group) to pass such laws as those of 1962 and 1963 in future; and (article 54) the possibility for any linguistic group to block a bill and open negotiations when it considers that such bill seriously jeopardizes its interests.
The 1970 State reform also created the Dutch, French and German Cultural Communities and laid the foundations for the establishment of three Regions.
Following the ruling of the Constitutional Court, after having remained unsolved after decades, the BHV issue was suddenly a hot topic.
The arrondissement consists of the following municipalities (in total accounting for around 1,595,000 inhabitants on 1 January 2006):[11] (names are written in respectively French and Dutch) Many legal experts in Flanders, such as Paul Van Orshoven [nl] and Matthias Storme, argue that there is no way out, other than splitting BHV, that will respect the entire Belgian constitution.
On the political level, Flemings argue that French-speakers who choose to live in Flanders should respect the Flemish institutions, legislation and official language (Dutch), and should stop requesting an exceptional status (of not having to respect the Flemish institutions that are constitutionally established and internationally recognized).
'Beci', a Brussels-based employers organisation with 90% membership of French-speaking businessmen, explicitly states it respects all the existing institutions, including the boundaries between the language areas.
There are binding rulings (as early as from 1968) from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, an institution with direct authority in all EU states, to confirm that the recognition of specific minority rights for the French-speakers is to be limited to a very few number of municipalities and to a limited set of public services.
Regular supra-national recommendations from the Council of Europe,[13] a body without direct authority and therefore a lesser status in the legal order in Belgium, expressed concerns in 2002 that the minority of French speakers in Flanders should be recognized and protected as an official linguistic minority, as defined by advise of the Venice Commission.
However, other reports from this institution provide arguments to the contrary (e.g. the fact that the francophones in Flanders cannot be regarded as looking back on longstanding and peaceful relations with the Flemish authorities).
Flemish authorities have stated that the recommendations from the Council of Europe are invalid as they did not take into account the Belgian constitution or the European jurisprudence, which confirms a very limited definition of the 'language facilities'.
In 2005, cabinet ministers and parties had been locked in debate over the future of this electoral district, and long-overdue decisions had not been reached.
A compromise worked out by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt was explicitly opposed by only one coalition partner, namely the Flemish party Spirit.
After visiting King Albert II to report the failure of the seven negotiation meetings to reach a successful conclusion, the Prime Minister requested a vote of confidence from the parliament.
Because the federal government failed to comply with a ruling of the Court of Arbitration that declared the provincial electoral districts compared to the two remaining arrondisemental ones in the former province of Brabant unconstitutional, several mayors in the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde area have threatened to refuse to compile the lists of electors.
This situation shows that the Belgian debate goes far beyond legal quarrels about BHV; as the power of Walloon institutions decrease (and this since its industrial breakdown in the late 1960s) and as the Flemish government clearly consolidates its ideological orientation toward a situation of cultural domination, supported by demographic and financial matters.
Every step in the Belgian debate can be interpreted symbolically as a fight between two cultures that might show mutual respect only when they can be protected from each other's domination.
[17] The newly appointed Flemish President of the Constitutional Court Marc Bossuyt has stated that federal elections (after 2007) would be deemed "unconstitutional" if a legal arrangement for Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde were not put into place by then.
N-VA, the winner and now largest party of Flanders and Belgium, want to split BHV without concessions for French speakers.
[28] Inhabitants living in Halle-Vilvoorde, whether French-speaking or Dutch speaking, lost the possibility to vote for politicians from Brussels during the federal elections.
[28] According to Glenn Audenaert [nl], the head of the federal judicial police, splitting BHV could have negative effects for the safety in the area, since criminals based in Brussels (an officially bilingual but mostly French-speaking city) often act in the Dutch-speaking area around it and would have to be judged in Dutch-speaking courts of the Flemish Region.
[29] There has been criticism of the agreement, for example a Brussels lawyer noting that it is startlingly complex, difficult to accomplish and very disadvantageous to Flanders.
