Based on my previous research on this topic it is not easy to forecast the orientation of the Europeans' vote. Their preference is usually for bilingual lists of candidates in election, but this is also a way of refusing to choose. The research showed that Europeans unwittingly fail to take into consideration that voting for a bilingual list in the periphery of Brussels, which is on the territory of the Flemish community, means voting for a French speaking list. For Europeans as well as for Moroccans and Turks in Brussels, language is not related to any form of identification with a community but is merely a tool of communication. This is a complex question.
Contextual elements shape the debate in both camps.
However, there are fundamental similarities, and in neither group is there a clear political commitment based upon principles. For example, the Walloon parliament recently declared its opposition to implementing the exceptions, negotiated by the Belgian government at the European summit in Essen, to allow the refusal of voting rights to foreigners within municipalities where they exceed the Belgian population by 20 per cent. Although it tends to be presented as such, this is not merely a commitment to the underlying values of the debate, because some major Wallonian political forces have for many years opposed the political rights of foreigners. One could to some extent argue that this discussion has become an instrument of the old debate between the Flemish and the French speaking community. Finally, there is another contextual element peculiar to the Flemish debate which is the significant influence of the extreme right.