Municipalities of Belgium with language facilities

In Belgium, there are 27 municipalities with language facilities (Dutch: faciliteitengemeenten [ˌfaːsiliˈtɛitə(n)ɣəˌmeːntə(n)]; French: communes à facilités [kɔmyn a fasilite]; German: Fazilitäten-Gemeinden [fatsiliˈtɛːtn̩ ɡəˈmaɪndn̩]), which must offer linguistic services to residents in Dutch, French, or German in addition to their single official languages. All other municipalities – with the exception of those in the bilingual Brussels region – are monolingual and offer services only in their official languages, either Dutch or French. Belgian law stipulates that:

12 municipalities in Flanders must offer services in French; of these 12, the six located around Brussels are now believed to have become majority French-speaking. Wallonia contains two language areas: In the French-speaking part of Wallonia, four municipalities offer services in Dutch and another two offer services in German. In the German-speaking part of Wallonia (annexed after WWI), all nine municipalities offer services in French in addition to German. In Brussels, Dutch and French are co-official. At the federal level, Dutch, French and German are all official languages.

History

1921–1962 There were three language areas as from the 31 July 1921 law: the Dutch-speaking Flemish area, the French-speaking Walloon area, and the bilingual area of Brussels (capital city). These language areas of 1921 actually had no institutional translation in the structure of the Belgian state, then still constitutionally divided into provinces and municipalities. Thence a French-speaking unilingual municipality could, for instance, be part of the province of West Flanders. The Belgian law of 28 June 1932, on the use of languages for administrative matters based the language status of every Belgian municipality on the decennial census that included, since 1846, several language questions about the knowledge as well as the day-to-day practice. The criterion to belong to the Flemish- or Walloon-language area was a threshold of 50%; whereas, with a threshold of 30%, the municipal authorities had to offer services in the minority language as well. A municipality could ask the government to change its linguistic status by a royal decree only after a census showed a passage over the 30% or 50% threshold. The German- and Luxembourgish-speaking minorities in Eastern Wallonia were not mentioned in the 1921 or 1931 laws. The German-speaking minority was mostly settled in the 'Eastern Cantons', several Prussian municipalities ceded to Belgium by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and administered from 1920 to 1925 by a Belgian military High Commissioner. There was, and still is, a Luxembourgish-speaking minority in some municipalities bordering the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The 1932 law was implemented only once, as the invasion of Belgium by Nazi Germany in 1940 prevented the organization of the decennial census, which was organized in 1947 and applied only on 2 July 1954, when an ad hoc law modifying the law of 28 June 1932 on the use of languages for administrative matters transferred three previously unilingual Flemish municipalities with language facilities to the French-speaking minority (Evere, Ganshoren, and Berchem-Sainte-Agathe) to the bilingual region of Brussels, thus and introduced language facilities for the French-speaking minority in four previously unilingual Flemish municipalities (Drogenbos, Kraainem, Wemmel, and Linkebeek).

1962 onwards In 1962–1963 four language areas were formally determined: the Dutch-language area (now also corresponding with the Flemish Region), the bilingual area of Brussels-Capital (whose borders came to determine those of the present Brussels-Capital Region), the French-language area, and the German-language area (together coinciding with Wallonia). The situation around Brussels (in the rim municipalities, see below) differs from the situation along the border between Flanders and Wallonia, and between the German- and French-speaking areas in Wallonia, where certain municipalities have had linguistic minorities for several centuries. The language border appears quite stable and peaceful, except for the municipalities of Voeren (French: Fourons) and, to a much lesser extent, Mouscron (Dutch: Moeskroen) and Comines-Warneton (Dutch: Komen-Waasten). During the 1970s, many municipalities were merged into a bigger municipality in order to lessen administrative overhead. However, the difficult situation of the municipalities with language facilities had the effect that no other municipalities liked to merge with those (unless they had the same facilities already). As a result, many of the smallest municipalities in Belgium today are municipalities with language facilities. S.a. the least populated municipality (Herstappe) and the smallest municipality with a city title (Mesen). In the early 1990s, a revision of the Belgian Constitution made it more difficult to change the language status of the concerned municipalities by requiring that any such change had to gain a majority in each of the two language groups in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Previously, an overall majority would have been enough, which could have in theory allowed a near unanimity of Flemish representatives to impose an abolition of the facilities against the unanimous wish of the French-speaking representatives. This revision of the Constitution was widely seen by French speakers as a recognition that language facilities had permanent status.

Implementation Currently, both Dutch and French speakers complain about poor or absent respect by certain authorities for their linguistic rights. Belgian and European courts are frequently solicited to arbitrate. Related political debates often take place in the various Belgian assemblies i.e. the federal, regional and community Parliaments.

Schools In accordance with Article 6 of the Act on linguistic arrangements in educational matters promulgated on 30 July 1963 and Article 3 of the Royal Decree of 14 March 1960 (implementing Article 4 of the law of 29 May 1959 to which it refers): nursery and primary education may be organised in another national language than the official language of the linguistic area under the condition that:

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