Flanders
Brief history
1830: Belgian independence
Belgian independence had catastrophic consequences for the Dutch language in Belgium. French was the only official language, and schools in the language of the people, Dutch, were abolished. Yet a border ran through this new artificial unitary state, with Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north and French-speaking Wallonia in the south. Geographically, Brussels lay in the Flemish part but was bilingual.
The struggle for the Dutch language
During the entire 19th century and until well into the 20th century, the emancipation of the Flemish people centred on the struggle to put the Dutch language on an equal footing with French, whereas the Belgian State conducted an active Frenchification policy. This cultural imperialism led to the rise of the Flemish Movement, an emancipatory movement which was devoted to obtaining an equal position for the Dutch language in public life. Little by little language laws appeared as of the end of the 19th century, which gradually made administrative services, education and jurisprudence in Flanders be in Dutch.
A fixed language border
The first language law dates back to 1873. The introduction of the general plural voting right for men (1893) paved the way for the so-called Equality Law of 1898, which caused Dutch to become Belgium’s second official language. However, the Walloons did not want an official bilingual status for Belgium. Instead, a compromise was agreed upon in 1932: Flanders became officially monolingually Dutch-speaking, Wallonia French-speaking and Brussels bilingual. The language border was established in 1963. The Belgian Constitution was only translated into Dutch in 1967.
Political self-government
During the 20th century the language flamingantism shifted to a struggle for more political self-rule. Since 1970, Belgium has experienced five state reforms which eventually transformed the country into a federal State with three Communities (the Flemish, French and German-speaking Communities) and three Regions (the Flemish, Walloon and Brussels Regions). The Flemish have been trying to bring about a sixth state reform aimed at granting the federated entities greater tax autonomy, as well as their own responsibility not only for income and expenditure but also for labour market policy, health care, justice and other matters.
Regions and Communities
The three Communities:
The three Regions:
The region is a territory-related government
In contrast to federated entities in other federations, the Regions in Belgium are only competent for so-called area-related matters such as town and country planning, the economy, employment, agriculture, public works, etc. The Flemish Region has 6.2 million inhabitants and the Walloon Region 3.5 million, while 1.1 million people live in the Brussels-Capital Region.
The Communities organize matters related to persons.
The Communities are responsible for matters related directly to the inhabitants: education, welfare, sport, media and culture. Because Belgium has three official languages, three Communities were established: the Flemish, the French and the German-speaking Communities. In the Brussels-Capital Region (the city of Brussels and 18 municipalities), the Flemish and French Communities have joint competences.
The federal level
Belgium is not traditionally a federal state. The federation, Communities and Regions are now on an equal footing, and the federal laws do not carry more weight than the decrees (the laws of the Communities and Regions). The federal level is still competent for justice, social security, defence, foreign policy, some sections of employment policy and economic policy. Monetary policy is mainly in the hands of the European Union.
Flanders in a nutshell
The Flemish Community and the Flemish Region were combined into one federated entity (with Brussels as the capital) with a Flemish Parliament and a Flemish Government. This was not the case in the southern part of the country. There is separate Walloon Region (Namur being its capital) and a separate French Community (with Brussels as the capital), each of which has its own Parliament and Government. The Brussels Region also has its own Parliament and its own Government.
The Flemish Parliament
The Flemish Parliament has 124 directly elected Members. It is elected every 5 years. The elections are held simultaneously with the European elections. The most recent Flemish elections were held in 2009.
The Flemish Government
The current Flemish Government is a coalition between the CD&V (the Christian Democrats), the sp.a (the Socialists) and the N-VA (Flemish Nationalists). The N-VA has two Ministers in the Flemish Government: Philippe Muyters (Finance, Budget, Work, Town and Country Planning and Sport) and Geert Bourgeois (Vice Minister-President and Flemish Minister for Administrative Affairs, Local and Provincial Government, Civic Integration, Tourism and the Vlaamse Rand (Flemish periphery of Brussels).
Flanders in a nutshell
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