Peeters directive
The Peeters directive, officially Circular BA 97/22 of 16 December 1997 concerning the use of languages in municipal councils of the Dutch language area, is a circulaire of the Flemish government regulating the use of languages in municipal councils in the Flemish Region, where the sole official language is Dutch. The directive is more in particular aimed at the municipalities with language facilities bordering the Brussels Capital-Region. It stipulates that each and every time French-speakers deal with the government, they must explicitly ask for their documents to be in French.
The circular caused national political commotion and reflects the conflicting perception of language facilities in Dutch and French-speaking public opinion. The non-appointment of three mayors of municipalities with language facilities – refused by the Flemish government because they repeatedly ignored the Peeters directives – was a highly mediatised issue during the 2007–2008 Belgian government formation. It attracted international attention when the mayors took their case to the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.
History
With the territoriality principle as the basic guideline of Belgian language politics, the language law of 28 June 1932 divided the country in the Dutch-speaking region, the French-speaking region and the German-speaking region. Brussels received a bilingual Dutch-French status. The law further stipulated that municipalities along the language border and around Brussels had to ensure a bilingual service when the minority language population exceeded 30% and that the language of administration would be changed when this "minority" exceeded 50%. In order to estimate the number of speakers of each language, a decennial language census was established, of which the results were often contested by the Flemish.The consensus in contemporary historical and political literature is that the results of the language census have to be interpreted with caution. The questions were alternatively on "known" languages or on the "usual" language, the most often spoken. Some considered this to refer to their mother tongue, while for others it referred to the prestigious and ubiquitous language that was French. Moreover, the censuses of 1920 and 1947 were performed in a post-war climate. Dutch, being closely related with German, was discredited due to collaborationism of certain wings of the Flemish Movement with the German occupation. French on the other hand enjoyed the status of the language of victory. Finally, given that the results had political consequences, inviting for manipulation in some cases, the census had more of a referendum on the language status of the municipality than of a sociological inquiry. In the 1947 census, more than 30% declared to speak French "exclusively or most frequently" in Wemmel, Kraainem, Drogenbos and Linkebeek, which meant that the French-speaking population of these municipalities received language facilities, whereby citizens can request to communicate with the municipal services in the language of their choice, while the official language remained the same.
The language laws of 1962–63, constitutionally entrenched in 1970, abolished the language census and fixed the language border between the language areas. All Belgian municipalities belong to one of these territories. Some municipalities went from one region to another, while others retained or were given a system of language facilities. Wezembeek-Oppem and Sint-Genesius-Rode became municipalities with language facilities. The last census in 1947 showed that the French minority in these towns was 18% and 16% respectively, but that 35% and 27% spoke French most frequently.
According to art. 7 of the 1966 law on the use of languages in the administration, the six municipalities situated in the Brussels periphery, namely Drogenbos, Kraainem, Linkebeek, Sint-Genesius-Rode, Wemmel and Wezembeek-Oppem, enjoy a "special treatment" and are called "rim municipalities". As part of the wider Francization of Brussels and a process of urbanisation, these formerly Dutch-speaking municipalities became majority French-speaking in the second half of the 20th century. This phenomenon, known in Flanders as the "oil slick", is, together with the future of Brussels, one of the most controversial topics in all of Belgian politics. All other municipalities with facilities, except for those in the German language area, plus Malmedy and Waimes, are grouped together as "language border municipalities".
Legal background
According to a 1986 ruling of the Constitutional Court, the division in language regions entails "a restriction on the ability of legislators to regulate the use of languages and so forms the constitutional guarantee of the priority of the language of the unilingual area". The 1988 revision of the constitution confirms that the parliaments of the French Community and the Flemish Community determine through decrees, each for their respective territory, the use of languages in administrative matters, the education system, for social contacts between the employer and his employees, and for official documents in business. However, the constitution makes an exception for municipalities with language facilities, stating that in those municipalities the law on the use of languages for situations listed in §1 can only be changed by a law adopted by a majority in both language groups.The Standing Commission for Linguistic Supervision is a federal institution responsible for collecting and reporting language complaints. It can give its opinion to the responsible public authorities, but its opinions are not binding. In its recommendations 26.125A, 26.033 and 23.062, the agency argued that language facilities should not lead to a generalised system of bilingualism of public services in which both languages would hold equal status. Only the regional governments can provide a supreme binding political interpretation for the language laws and the application of language facilities, which can only be annulled by the Council of State.
As a general rule, the federal government communicates with citizens in the language of the region, not in their individual language. Only in municipalities with facilities, another language can be used when so requested.
Contents
Underlying ideas
The Peeters directive's recommendations for municipalities with language facilities bordering the Brussels Capital-Region and the language border, where to some extent the French-speaking population has the right to relate with the local and federal administration in French, have triggered political commotion. It stipulates these facilities, being "an exception to the rule of unilingualism of the official language areas", should be interpreted "strictly", considering their "exceptional" and "temporary" character.The directive argues language facilities have an "integrative function", meaning that, "per definition", "for the concerned individual", they have an "extinguishing character". It reads further: "The interpretation of language facilities has to take into account the possibility that a French-speaking inhabitant, who previously made use of these facilities, meanwhile knows the language of the region well enough and consequently no longer wishes to invoke the facilities". In this sense, facilities are temporary in character, and because they are temporary, they have to be applied "restrictively", implying that French-speakers have to make a new request each and every time they wish to use French in official affairs. The directive claims the "spirit in which the language laws of 1962-63 were established" is reflected in the end report of the Harmel Centre:
According to the directive, this quote clearly shows that the language facilities were intended to ease the transition of the minority language inhabitants to the Community to which their municipality would belong from that moment onwards.
Tangible changes of the existing practice
The most important rule introduced by the Peeters directive is that all official documents have to be sent to the citizens in Dutch. Afterwards, French-speakers can request a French translation for each separate document, on their own initiative. As for the application of documents in the town hall, all these documents have to be issued in Dutch in the municipalities along the language border, after which a translation can be requested. For the "rim municipalities", a French translation can be requested beforehand. Such a restrictive meaning went against the existing practice, whereby citizens had to declare their preferred language only once.Another issue is that the Peeters directive stipulates that the language of administration and local public services should at all times be Dutch, the only official language of the concerned municipalities. It is obligatory to speak Dutch in meetings of the municipal council and the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.
Legal challenge and controversy
On the internal language of administration
On the initiative of the municipality of Linkebeek, the Constitutional Court of Belgium was asked for an opinion on the constitutionality of article 23 of the law of 18 July 1966 that stipulates that the internal language of administration in the rim municipalities has to be Dutch. In its ruling 98/26 of 10 March 1998, the Court ruled this was not in violation with articles 10 and 11 of the Constitution of Belgium and that the mayor and aldermen do indeed not have the right to speak in another language than Dutch during council meetings. The Court further specified that the language facilities do not alter the principle of Dutch unilingualism of the concerned municipalities and that the Constitution guarantees the primacy of Dutch.On the annulment of the circular
On 27 February 1998, the French Community of Belgium and the Walloon Region, together with a French-speaking inhabitant of one of the concerned rim municipalities, challenged the legitimacy of the directive before the Council of State. On 27 March 2001, the court argued that two first plaintiffs did not have any powers within the territory of the Flemish Region, and dismissed the appeal on those grounds. The case of the French-speaking inhabitant was forwarded to a Dutch-speaking chamber and debates were reopened. On 25 February 1998, the municipality of Kraainem had initiated another case, also requesting annulment of the directive. On 28 May, Wemmel and Wezembeek-Oppem filed for intervention, joined by Drogenbos on 28 July 2008. The municipalities claimed that the directive introduced new rules, and thus conflicted with art. 129, §2 of the Constitution.On 23 December 2004, the Council of State decided not to nullify the directive. It argued that although the directive may have changed existing practice, it did not change the legal situation and was only to reverse the habit of municipal administrations of addressing a citizen in French without an explicit repeated request, and that the directive did not impede the use of French when wished. The court followed ruling 98/26 of the Constitutional Court, stating that the interpretation of the language law had to match the priority of Dutch; that the interpretation of the language facilities put forward by the plaintiffs did thus not apply, but would on the contrary lead to "a factual state of bilinguism whereby the language preference would even be stocked in files".
The Court's decision was received with derision by the French-speaking political parties. In a reaction of 13 January 2005, the Front Démocratique des Francophones wrote:
On 25 January 2005, the parliament of the French Community of Belgium ratified a "Resolution aimed to reaffirm the unswerving link between the French Community and the French-speakers of the periphery and Voeren":