Facilities community

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The facilities municipalities in Belgium

The municipalities with facilities (or "municipalities with language facilities", Dutch Faciliteitengemeente , French Facilités linguistiques ) are those municipalities in Belgium in which certain facilities and public services of the municipality concerned are offered not only in the respective regional language, but also in another national language have to. The scope and type of these facilities are regulated by law.

The Brussels-Capital Region has its own bilingual statute (French / Dutch) and therefore does not fall under the category of municipalities with facilities.

history

Until the final determination of the current language border in Belgium in 1963, the introduction of linguistic simplifications was made dependent on the results of the "language counts" that took place every ten years. After these counts had been abolished, not least due to pressure from the Flemish, a permanent solution had to be found. Certain municipalities in which Dutch or German-speaking as well as Francophone residents lived became municipalities with facilities. In principle, a municipality received this statute, provided that the share of the linguistic minority in it was at least 30%. The intention was to integrate the linguistic minorities into their surroundings (especially on the edge of the agglomeration of Brussels) and to grant protection to historically grown minorities along the Dutch-French and French-German language borders.

Symptoms of the language dispute in the Voeren

The practical introduction was far more complicated and often caused dissatisfaction. The Flemings pointed out that the municipalities of Waterloo and La Hulpe (Terhulpen) , which are located directly on the Dutch-French language border in Walloon Brabant , each had more than 30% Dutch -speaking residents when the language border was determined, but this statute of a municipality with facilities did not got. It had also been shown that the language counting in 1947 had resorted to dishonest means in some communities. The residents of Enghien / Edingen, for example, had been urged to register as francophone or at least bilingual (with French as their mother tongue), which placed the community on the edge of the francophone area. Last but not least, it was criticized that as a result of the language census at that time, a number of places and districts had been transferred from Flanders to Wallonia or from Wallonia to Flanders without any protection for the linguistic minorities present in them.

In Voeren / Fourons, a group was formed Walloon-minded people who are against the outsourcing of Voerstreek from the province of Liege and the inclusion in the Flemish province of Limburg fought in the 1963rd When José Happart from Wallonia , who did not speak a word of Dutch, was elected mayor in 1982 , this led to tensions and government crises. The conflict only ended in 1989 when Happart was voted out of office.

The facilities in practice

Double (bilingual) traffic sign in Eupen

In the municipalities with facilities, reports and resolutions of the municipal council are drawn up in two languages, with the regional language being used first. At the stations of the National Society of Belgian Railways (NMBS / SNCB), both the French and the Dutch station name are used in the Walloon facility communities (Enghien / Edingen, Comines / Komen, Mouscron / Moeskroen). In the Flemish municipalities with facilities, including their sub-municipalities, the use of French names and labels for squares, streets, signs etc. has been officially abolished since December 2006.

Facilities for school education have been in place since July 30, 1963, which means that primary schools for francophone children can be set up on the edge of the Dutch-speaking area. The same applies to the 24 (since 1977 nine) municipalities of the German-speaking Community and 15 (since 1977 five) francophone neighboring municipalities, where there are or can be both German and French-speaking schools. In Wallonia, on the other hand, there are almost no classes in Dutch, which is due on the one hand to the greater willingness of the Flemish to integrate and on the other hand to the administrative and political pressure from the francophone municipal administrations. For example, the French-speaking community has so far refused to support the only Dutch-speaking primary school on its territory (in Comines-Warneton / Komen-Waasten), while the Flemish Community generously supports the francophone schools in its communities with facilities (with almost ten million euros in 2004) and also maintains the Dutch-speaking school in Comines / Komen.

In the six outlying municipalities (see below) around the agglomeration of Brussels as well as in Comines-Warneton / Komen-Waasten and Voeren / Fourons there is the special feature that both the municipal council and the lay judges are directly elected by the citizens in order to represent different language communities in the Community guarantee.

The linguistic situation in the communities of the “ Platdütschen Region ”, namely in Baelen (Balen), Bleyberg (Bleiberg / Plombières) and Welkenraedt (Welkenrath / Welkenraat), is even stranger . These municipalities, located between the Voerstreek and the German-speaking community, in which the population speaks a Dutch-German border dialect from time immemorial (of 19,000 inhabitants in 1987, 16,000 inhabitants spoke “ platdiets ”), came through the definition of the language border at the extreme northeast Edge of the francophone area, but by law the possibility was left open later to set up facilities in administrative matters for Dutch and / or German speakers ("dormant" facilities). Officially, no use was made of these facilities in the administrations of these municipalities, however, these three municipalities decided a few years ago to introduce facilities on a voluntary basis out of consideration for their (meanwhile strongly increased) German minorities . The school teaching facilities also apply to non-Francophone residents of the municipalities of Baelen, Plombières and Welkenraedt.

The linguistic presentation of the official websites of such facility communities is not uniform and the language legislation does not affect this point anyway. The website of the Comines-Warneton / Komen-Waasten municipality is only available in French, in Enghien / Edingen, Flobecq / Vloesberg and Mouscron / Moeskroen as well as in five Flemish municipalities with facilities along the language border in two languages. The municipality of Herstappe (fewer than 100 inhabitants) has not put a website on the Internet. The websites of the municipalities in the eastern cantons are usually at least bilingual (G / F), that of the city of Malmedy even in four languages ​​(F / NL / D / English), while the municipalities of Baelen, Plombières and Welkenraedt have such "facilities" on their official websites " not to offer.

Facility municipalities in Belgium

(Status after the municipal associations in 1977, the version of the name used in the respective official and regional language is prefixed)

Municipalities on the language border in the Flemish Community with facilities (municipalities with language facilities) for Francophones :

Municipalities on the language border in the French Community with facilities for Dutch speakers:

Suburbs of the Brussels agglomeration belonging to the Flemish Community with facilities for Francophone:

Municipalities in the French Community of Belgium with facilities for German speakers:

Municipalities in the French Community of Belgium with "dormant" facilities for Dutch and / or German speakers (for some years now with "voluntary" facilities for German speakers):

Municipalities in the German-speaking Community of Belgium with facilities for Francophone:

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