Brussels-Capital Region

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This article explains the status of the "Brussels-Capital Region". There is a separate article for the city of Brussels.
    Brussels-Capital Region

Région de Bruxelles-Capitale (French)
Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest (Dutch)
Information
Official languages French, Dutch
Capital Brussels
Area 161 km²
ISO 3166-2 BE-BRU
Official website www.brussels.irisnet.be
Population
Total 1,031,215  (January 1, 2007)
Density 6,389 / km²
Institutions
Minister-President Charles Picqué
Established 1993
Celebration day September 27
Anthem none
Location

The Brussels-Capital Region in Belgium
Brussels-Capital Region, Flemish Region, Wallonia
Flemish Community, French Community,
German-speaking Community

The Brussels-Capital Region (French: Région de Bruxelles-Capitale, Dutch: Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest, German: Region Brüssel-Hauptstadt) or short Brussels Region (French: Région Bruxelloise, Dutch: Brussels Gewest, German: Brüsseler Region) is one of the three regions of Belgium, while the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community do exercise, each for their part, their cultural competencies on the territory of the region. French and Dutch are the official languages; most public services are bilingual (exceptions being education and a couple of others). The Capital Region is predominantly French-speaking - about 85-90%[1][2][3] of the population are French-speakers (including migrants), and about 10-15%[4] [3] are Dutch-speakers. In January 2006, of its registered inhabitants, 73.1% are Belgian nationals, 4.1% French nationals, 12.0% other EU nationals (usually expressing themselves in either French or English), 4.0% Moroccan nationals, and 6.8% other non-EU nationals.[5]

Contents

[edit] History

The Belgian Constitution announced the creation of three regions since the constitutional reform of 24 December 1970, when an article 107quater (the current art. 3) was inserted, stating that "Belgium is made up of three regions: The Flemish region, the Walloon region and the Brussels region." However, only after the adoption the special law of 12 January 1989, the Region came into existence, nine years later than the Flemish and the Walloon region. [6]

[edit] Institutions

Because of how the federalisation was handled in Belgium, but also because of the fact that the municipalities in the region did not take part in the merger that affected municipalities in the rest of Belgium in the seventies, the public institutions in Brussels offer a bewildering complexity. The complexity is more apparent in the lawbooks than in the facts, since the members of the Brussels Parliament and Government also act in other capacities, e.g. as members of the council of the Brussels agglomeration or the community commissions. One distinguishes:

  • The region, with a regional parliament of 89 members (72 French-speaking, 17 Dutch-speaking, parties are organised on a linguistic basis), plus a regional government, consisting of an officially linguistically neutral, but in practice French-speaking minister-president, two French-speaking and two Dutch-speaking ministers, one Dutch-speaking secretary of state and two French-speaking secretaries of state. This parliament can enact ordinances (Dutch: ordonnanties, French: ordonnances), which have equal status as a national legislative act.
  • The agglomeration, with a council and a board, with the same membership as the organs of the Brussels Region. This is a decentralised administrative public body, assuming competences which elsewhere in Belgium are exercised by municipalities or provinces (fire brigade, waste disposal). The by-laws enacted by it do not have the status of a legislative act.
  • A bi-communitarian public authority, Common Community Commission (Dutch: Gemeenschappelijke Gemeenschapscommissie, GGC, French: Commission communautaire commune, COCOM), with a United Assembly (i.e. the members of the regional parliament) and a United Board (the ministers - not the secretaries of state - of the region, with the minister-president not having the right to vote). This Commission has two capacities: it is a decentralised administrative public body, responsible for implementing cultural policies of common interest. It can give subsidies and enact by-laws. In another capacity it can also enact ordinances, which have equal status as a national legislative act, in the field of the welfare competencies of the communities: in the Brussels-Capital Region, both the French Community and the Flemish Community can exercise competencies in the field of welfare, but only in regard to institutions that are unilingual (e.g. a private French-speaking retirement home or the Dutch-speaking hospital of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel). The Common Community Commission is competent for policies aiming directly at private persons or at bilingual institutions (e.g. the centra for social welfare of the 19 municipalities). Its ordinances have to be enacted with a majority in both linguistic groups. Failing such a majority, a new vote can be held, where a majority of at least one third in each linguistic group is sufficient.
  • 2 community-specific public authorities, Flemish Community Commission (Dutch: Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, VGC) for the Flemings in Brussels, and the French Community Commission (French: Commission communautaire française or COCOF), with an assembly (i.e. the members of parliament of the linguistic group) and a board (the ministers and secretaries of state of the linguistic group). These commissions implement policies of the Flemish Community and the French Community in the Brussels-Capital Region.
  • The French Community Commission has also another capacity: some legislative competencies of the French Community have been devolved to the Walloon Region (for the French language area of Belgium) and to the French Community Commission (for the bilingual language area) (procedure contained in art. 138 of the Belgian Constitution). The Flemish Community didn't do so, it even merged the Flemish Region into the Flemish Community (procedure in art. 137 of the Belgian Constitution) - this has to do with different conceptions in the two communities, one focussing more on the communities and the other more on the regions, causing an asymmetrical federalism. Because of this devolution, the French Community Commission can enact decrees, which are legislative acts.
  • The Brussels Region is neither a province, nor does it belong to one. Within the Region, 99% of the provincial competencies are assumed by the Brussels regional institutions. Remaining is only the governor of Brussels-Capital and some aides.
  • 19 local, municipal authorities with a 600-odd municipal councillors
  • 6 inter-municipal policing zones
  • intercommunal societies created freely by the municipalities

Also the federal state, the French Community and the Flemish Community exercise competencies on the territory of the region. 19 of the 72 French-speaking members of the Brussels Parliament are also members of the Parliament of the French Community of Belgium, and until 2004 this was also the case for six Dutch-speaking members, who were at the same time members of the Flemish Parliament. Now, people voting for a Flemish party have to vote separately for 6 directly elected members of the Flemish Parliament.

Due to the multiple capacities of single members of parliament, there are parliamentarians who are at the same member of the Brussels Parliament, member of the Assembly of the Common Community Commission, member of the Assembly of the French Community Commission, member of the Parliament of the French Community of Belgium and "community senator" in the Belgian Senate. At the moment, this is the case for Mr. François Roelants du Vivier (for the Mouvement Réformateur), Mrs. Amina Derbaki Sbaï (since June 2004 for the Parti Socialiste, but beforehand, since 2003, for the Mouvement Réformateur) and Mrs Sfia Bouarfa (since 2001 for the Parti Socialiste).

[edit] Municipalities

The Brussels-Capital Region is divided into 19 municipalities, of which the City of Brussels is the largest and most populous. See the list of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region.


[edit] Demographics

On January 1, 2005, the region had a population of 1,006,749 for 161.382 km² which gives a population density of 6,238.29 inhabitants per km².

Population by national origin at the 1st March 1991
(last census ever organized in Belgium)
Belgians born in Belgium (and Belgian-born) 607,446 63.7%
Belgians born abroad (and Belgian-born)
including:
Congo, Rwanda and Burundi (former Belgian overseas territories)		 21,028
8,116		 2,2%
(100%)
38.6%
Naturalized migrants (not born in Belgium, not Belgian-born)
including:
France
Morocco		 36,938
6,348
3,022		 3.9%
(100%)
17.2%
8.2%
Naturalized 1st and 2nd generations (born in Belgium, not Belgian-born)
including:
France
Morocco		 17,045
2,757
2,522		 1.8%
(100%)
16.2%
14.8%
Non-naturalized 1st and 2nd generations
including:
Morocco		 87,987
37,300		 9.2%
(100%)
42.4%
Old migrants
(born abroad, foreign nationals, living in Belgium in 1986)
including:
Morocco
Italy		 123,411
35,138
16,027		 12.9%
(100%)
28.5%
13%
Recent migrants
(born abroad, foreign nationals, arrived in Belgium after 1986)
including:
France
Morocco		 60,185
8,513
4,970		 6.3%
(100%)
14.1%
8.3%
Total Brussels-Capital Region 954,040 100%

source of data in the above table: T. Eggerickx et al., De allochtone bevolking in België, Algemene Volks- en Woningtelling op 1 maart 1991, Monografie nr. 3, 1999, Nationaal Instituut voor de Statistiek

At the last Belgian census in 1991, there were 63.7% inhabitants in Brussels-Capital Region who answered they were Belgian citizens, born as such in Belgium. However, there have been numerous individual or familial migrations towards Brussels since the end of the 18th century, including political refugees (Karl Marx, Victor Hugo, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Léon Daudet e.g.) from neighbouring or more distanced countries as well as labour migrants, former foreign students or expatriots, and many Belgian families in Brussels can tell at least a foreign grandparent. And even among the Belgians, many became Belgian only recently.

The original Dutch dialect of Brussels (Brussels) is a form of Brabantic (the variant of Dutch spoken in the ancient Duchy of Brabant) with a significant number of loanwords from French, and still survives among a minority of inhabitants called Brusseleers, many of them quite bi- and multilingual, or educated in French and not writing the Dutch language. Brussels and its suburbs evolved from a Dutch-dialect speaking town to a mainly French speaking town. The ethnic and national self-identification of the inhabitants is quite different along ethnic lines. For their French-speaking Bruxellois, it can vary from Belgian, Francophone Belgian, Bruxellois (like the Memeller in interwar ethnic censuses in Memel), Walloon (for people who migrated from the Wallonia Region at an adult age); for immigrants from Flanders it is mainly either Flemish or Brusselaar (Dutch for an inhabitant); for the Brusseleers, most of them simply consider themselves as belonging to Brussels. For the many rather recent migrants from other countries, the identification also includes all the national origins: people tend to call themselves Moroccans or Turks rather than an American-style hyphenated version.

Recent immigration has brought its population of foreign origin to 56%.[citation needed] The two largest foreign groups come from two francophone countries: France and Morroco.[7] The first language of roughly half of the inhabitants is not an official one of the Capital Region.[citation needed] Nevertheless, about three out of four residents have the Belgian nationality.[8][9][10][11] In general the population of Brussels is younger and the gap between rich and poor is wider. Brussels also has a large concentration of Muslims, mostly of Turkish and Moroccan ancestry, and mainly French-speaking black Africans. However, Belgium does not collect statistics by ethnic background, so exact figures are unknown.

Both immigration and its status as head of the European Commission made Brussels a really cosmopolitan city. The migrant communities, as well as rapidly growing communities of EU-nationals from other EU-member states, speak Moroccan dialectal Arabic, French, Turkish, Spanish (most Spaniards came from the Asturias, a minority from Andalusia and some from Catalonia and the Basque country), Italian, Polish, Rif Berber, English and other languages, including those of every EU-member state in the expat communities. The degree of linguistic integration varies widely within each migrant group.

Among all major migrants groups from outside the EU, a majority of the permanent residents have acquired the Belgian nationality.

Although historically (since the Counter-Reformation persecution and expulsion of Protestants by the Spaniards in the 16th century) Roman Catholic, most people in Brussels are non-practising. About 10% of the population regularly attends church services. Among the religions, historically dominant Roman Catholicism prevailing mostly in a relaxed way, one finds large minorities of Muslims, atheists, agnosticists, and of the philosophical school of humanism, the latter mainly as vrijzinnig-laïcité (an approximate translation would be secularists or free thinkers) or practicing Humanism as a life stance - Brussels houses several key organisations for both kinds. Other (recognized) religions (Protestantism, Anglicanism, Orthodoxy and Judaism) are practised by much smaller groups in Brussels. Recognized religions and Laïcité enjoy public funding and school courses: every pupil in an official school from 6 years old to 18 must choose 2 hours per week of compulsory religion- or Laïcité-inspired morals.

[edit] References

  1. ^ (French) Personal website Lexilogos located in the Provence, on European Languages (English, French, German, Dutch, and so on) - French-speakers in Brussels are estimated at about 90% (estimation, not an 'official' number because there are no linguistic census in Belgium)
  2. ^ (French) Langues majoritaires, langues minoritaires, dialectes et NTIC by Simon Petermann, Professor at the Univerity of Liège, Wallonia, Belgium
  3. ^ a b Flemish Academic E. Corijn, at a Colloquium regarding Brussels, on 5 December 2001, states that in Brussels there is 91% of the population speaking French at home, either alone or with another language, and there is about 20% speaking Dutch at home, either alone (9%) or with French (11%) - After ponderation, the repartition can be estimated at between 85 and 90% French-speaking, and the remaining are Dutch-speaking, corresponding to the estimations based on languages chosen in Brussels by citizens for their official documents (ID, driving licenses, weddings, birth, death, and so on) ; all these statistics on language are also available at Belgian Department of Justice (for weddings, birth, death), Department of Transport (for Driving licenses), Department of Interior (for IDs), because there are no means to know precisely the proportions since Belgium has abolished 'official' linguistic censuses, thus official documents on language choices can only be estimations.
  4. ^ (French) Personal website Lexilogos located in the Provence, on European Languages (English, French, German, Dutch, and so on) - Dutch-speakers in Brussels are estimated at about 10% (estimation, not an 'official' number because there are no linguistic census in Belgium)
  5. ^ (French) IS 2007 - Population (Tableaux)
  6. ^ Brussels-Capital region / Creation
  7. ^ (French) IS 2007 - Population (Tableaux)
  8. ^ Van Parijs, Philippe, Professor of economic and social ethics at the UCLouvain, Visiting Professor at Harvard University and the KULeuven. "Belgium's new linguistic challenges" (pdf 0.7 MB). KVS Express (supplement to newspaper De Morgen) March–April 2007: Article from original source (pdf 4.9 MB) pages 34–36 republished by the Belgian Federal Government Service (ministry) of Economy — Directorate-general Statistics Belgium.  — The linguistic situation in Belgium (and in particular various estimations of the population speaking French and Dutch in Brussels) is discussed in detail.
  9. ^ "Van autochtoon naar allochtoon" (in Dutch) . De Standaard (newspaper) online. “Meer dan de helft van de Brusselse bevolking is van vreemde afkomst. In 1961 was dat slechts 7 procent. (More than half of the Brussels' population is of foreign origin. In 1961 this was only 7 percent.)” 
  10. ^ Footnote: The Brussels region's 56% residents of foreign origin include several percents of either Dutch people or native speakers of French, thus roughly half of the inhabitants do not speak either French or Dutch as primary language.
  11. ^ Population et ménages (pdf 1.4 MB) (French). IBSA Cellule statistique — Min. Région Bruxelles-Capitale (Statistical cell — Ministry of the Brussels-Capital Region). Retrieved on 2007-05-05.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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