Halle-Vilvoorde Komitee

Beatrijslaan 6
1850	Grimbergen

							Grimbergen, March 27th, 2002

To the members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the  Council of Europe

Dear  Madam,
Dear Sir,

Re : protection of minorities in Belgium - draft resolution
        22-26 April Session of the Parliamentary Assembly

The committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights adopted, on report of Mrs. Lili Nabholz-Haidegger, a draft resolution on the protection of minorities in Belgium. According to this resolution – based on a decision of the Venice Commission - the French-speakers in  the Dutch-language Region and the Dutch-speakers in the French-language Region are to be considered at local and regional level as minorities.

We think that the draft resolution and the Venice Commission gave a much too large interpretation of the notion “national minority” and of the scope of the Convention.

Adoption of the resolution by the Parliamentary Assembly would create an extremely dangerous precedent, also for other countries than Belgium. 

1.  First of all the Framework Convention, only deals with “national” minorities, and therefore, it is not possible to extend the Conventions scope to minorities on the regional or local level. Would the Parliamentary Assembly f.i. consider to determine the minority status of language groups in each of the cantons of Switzerland ? 

The convention only applies to the national states, and it is therefore only at that level that the existence of minorities is to be determined. Belgium has chosen to meet its international commitments with respect to national minorities by the constitution of two major monolingual regions (the Dutch-speaking Region Flanders and the French-speaking Region Wallonia), one bilingual Region (the Brussels Capital Region) and a German language area with “language facilities” for the French-speakers (although the French-speakers are not indigenous in this area). Furthermore a very limited number of communes in the French-speaking and in the Dutch-speaking Region 

have the same kind of language facilities for French-speakers, c.q. Dutch-speakers and German-speakers. The protection of minorities is furthermore guaranteed by a large economical and cultural autonomy of the regions, with in the Brussels bilingual Region, a form of autonomy of each language group in cultural matters. The borders of the monolingual Regions were fixed in 1960-1963 by statute-law approved by a majority of each language group in the national parliament (Senate and House of Representatives).

In Belgium the French-speakers count for approximately 40 % of the population (Dutch speakers approximately 60 % and German-speakers 0.6 %). On the national level the protection of the French-speaking minority is so strong in Belgium that even the Venice Commission agrees that the French-speakers cannot be considered as “national minority” on this level. 

On the national level  all important institutional legislation has indeed to be approved by a majority in each language group. On top of that, the federal government must at any time count an equal number of Ministers of each language group (Prime Minister excepted), and therefore cannot survive if it looses the support of the majority of French-speaking representatives. So overruling of the French-speaking representatives by Dutch-speaking representatives is impossible.

2. Should the Convention nevertheless be interpreted as also regulating the protection of minorities on regional or local level. 

We think that in that case, the Venice Commission (and the Committee on Legal Affairs) is making a large flaw in its reasoning. How can it indeed be deducted from the fact that a part of the population constitutes a minority in the country, that members of this population group are automatically also  to be considered as a minority in (each of) the Regions of that country “if and to the extent that they so wish” (point 7 of the draft resolution). 

It seems on the contrary obvious that such population group can only constitute a “national minority” in that Region, if all the commonly accepted criteria are met, i.e. if they constitute a group of persons who : 

-	(a) reside on the territory of that region, and are citizens thereof – (i.e., on the regional level, are an indigenous inhabitant of that region, 
-	(b) “maintain longstanding, firm and lasting ties with that region”, 
-	(c) display distinctive characteristics 
-	(d) are sufficiently representative 
-	(e) are motivated by a concern to preserve their identity.  It is utterly surprising that the Venice Commission did not examine the situation form this point-of- view. 

It is precisely the fact that the French-speaking inhabitants of the communes surrounding Brussels are not indigenous inhabitants in the Dutch Region, but 

nevertheless do not want to accept the monolingual Dutch status of the Region in which they freely decided to live, that constitutes the problem in some communes surrounding Brussels. In fact a large number of these inhabitants refuse even to learn the Dutch language (we explain this particular situation in detail in a letter to Mrs. Nabholz-Haidegger, dated February 8, 2002, of which you will find a copy enclosed or by separate mail).

Granting the benefit of the minority status to such recent immigrants was clearly not the aim of the Framework Convention. It would jeopardise the delicate Belgian institutional framework, relying amongst others on a definitive fixation of the language border (as a protection against Frenchifying of Dutch communes).  The existence of this border is well known to all citizens since more than forty years. 

In our opinion the Dutch-speaking Region is not only entitled, but even has the duty to preserve the Dutch-speaking character of the Communes surrounding Brussels
from Frenchifying. In these  particular communes, it is not the French-speaking community that is threatened, but the Dutch-speaking community that is overwhelmed by the immigration of French-speakers.

It would therefore  be an extremely dangerous precedent to extend the application of the Convention to non-indigenous inhabitants of a subdivision of a state. Apart from the Belgian situation one has to examine carefully the full consequences of this extensive interpretation for other (subdivisions of) countries (f.i. the German-speakers in the Swiss canton of Jura or Ticino

We trust that you will understand our position and reject the ill-considered draft resolution.

For a sake of completeness, we wish to stress that it never has been the intention to threaten the French-speakers living in the Dutch-language Region with losing their identity (i.e. losing their ability to learn and speak French). A proof thereof is that in the whole Dutch-speaking Region (and thus not only in the communes surrounding Brussels) the French language is obligatorily taught as second language. In the French-speaking Region, on the contrary, the obligation to learn Dutch was abolished some years ago. 

Yours sincerely,

 
On behalf of the Halle-Vilvoorde Komitee
Luc Deconinck, President
Tel : 0496 540 249
e-mail : l.deconinck@pandora.be