The institutional future of Brussels
Authors: Maskens Alain , Lagasse Nicolas , Van Nieuwenhove Jeroen , Dumont Hugues 
Published: January 2017

A number of public policies – from the regional organisation of multilingual education to the development of multicultural activities, with consistent management of the various Community and regional powers in between – have a hard time fitting into Brussels’s current framework. The matter of reforming this framework, whether slightly or radically, is thus regularly brought up.Brussels Studies has chosen to ask the question of Brussels’s institutional future based on a widely circulated document that proposes some rather radical solutions, namely, the “Brussels Manifesto” (http://www.manifestobru.be). Without delivering a “turnkey” institutional model, its signatories advocate developing a federalism that relies heavily on the regions. A colloquium on the subject was held last 19 March. The proceedings of this colloquium form the backbone of this issue of Brussels Studies, which is published, as usually, in three languages. In a new development, these articles are accompanied by some longer untranslated texts that were supplied by a few of the authors. So, in this issue Alain Maskens, who is the president of the non-profit association Manifesto and co-author of the manifesto itself, engages in a dialogue with two constitutional lawyers: Nicolas Lagasse (FUSL) and Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove (KUL). Hugues Dumont (FUSL ‑ co-author of Issue 10 of Brussels Studies), who is likewise a constitutional lawyer, was given the task of drawing the conclusions of the debate.Some very different visions of the region’s future meet each other in this dialogue. Alain Maskens, as a promoter of the Brussels Manifesto, advocates an intensive form of regionalism that leaves the cultural communities with only the powers of the cultural promotion of their respective languages, excluding education, “personalisable” subject matters, and culture. Secondly, he calls for a re-examination of Brussels’s boundaries or, failing that, clear progress towards the creation of an urban community (see moreover Issue 11 of Brussels Studies). The manifesto’s signatories make a particularly original proposal in suggesting that the distinction between the borders of the federated entities and those of the linguistic regions truly be taken seriously. If this were done, enlarging the Brussels-Capital Region would then not challenge the monolingual status of the municipalities that do not enjoy “linguistic easements”. Thirdly, he brings up the region’s chronic under-financing and asks that the region be saved from otherwise unavoidable asphyxiation. Finally, the Brussels Manifesto calls for the creation of bilingual electoral lists on the region’s territory. To do this, it advocates putting an end to the candidates’ identification by language. Consequences would be both the possibility of creating bilingual lists and the elimination of the guarantees of parliamentary representation given to the Flemish residents of Brussels.In focusing on the manifesto’s authors’ goals, i.e., promoting the organisation of bilingual and multicultural cultural activities, developing bilingual education, and waging an effective employment policy, Nicolas Lagasse asks to what extent the proposed solutions fit the bill. At the end of his review it seems to him that these goals would be served better by a reasonable evolution of the current structure than by the far-reaching reforms that the manifesto proposes. In his view, these reforms would be difficult to put into effect. Consequently, he advocates continuing to think in terms of advancing stepwise, building each time on the achievements of the previous step. He even suggests strengthening the communities by removing from the Constitution the clause that limits their actions to the sphere of their own languages. If the wish is to put an end to cultural compartmentalisation in Belgium, he says, everyone must be free to invest in bicultural activities. He even proposes going back on the Saint Quentin agreements that transferred the French-speaking Community’s powers to the French-speaking Community Commission (COCOF). In his opinion, refederating the community powers and simply dismantling the COCOF would improve the coordination and consistency of the policies that are implemented.Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove, for his part, reveals the vagueness of many of the manifesto’s proposals as well as the fact that many of them are unacceptable to Flemish political leaders because they either go against compromises for which they paid dearly or collide head-on with their notions of Belgium and the relations amongst the federated entities that make up the country. So, it appears impossible for him to envision changing the region’s boundaries to make them coincide with Brussels’s economic hinterland. The history of the Flemings’ demands is notably that of their request that the same language rules should apply across the territory of each of the different federated entities and the idea of dissociating regional territory from linguistic territory would not, in Van Nieuwenhove’s view, be likely to get the support of Flemish political circles. In the same vein, ending the guaranteed representation for Brussels’s Flemish residents would, in his view, sever the tie with Flanders, a tie that is one of the last obstacles to separatism.Finally, in drawing his conclusions, Hugues Dumont wonders about the enforceability of the manifesto’s ideas. As he sees it, a series of fundamental proposals in the Brussels Manifesto appear difficult to carry out because they are incompatible with the French political class’s concern to conserve a strong tie between Brussels and Wallonia and are totally opposed to the Flemish leaders’ ideas. However, that does not mean that one must be fatalistic. And so, Dumont points to five reforms that he believes are possible: doing away with the COCOM to the benefit of the Brussels Region, lifting the prohibition on the communities’ subsidising bi- or multicultural activities, transferring the power to legislate in bicultural subject matters of regional or local interest to the Brussels Region, giving this same region the power to organise bilingual education, and, finally, eliminating the COCOF as a federated political entity.