BV0800569

Autumn Session Chamber of Local Authorities

2 December 2008

Speech by Michel Guégan, rapporteur on the situation of local democracy in Belgium

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Ladies and gentlemen,

Before presenting my report, I should like to greet the representative of Minister Marino Keulen, Minister of the Interior of the Flemish Government, and the three non‑appointed mayors; Mr François van Hoobrouck d’Aspres (Wezembeek‑Oppem), Mr Arnold d’Oreye de Lantremange (Krainhem) and Mr Damien Thiéry (Linkebeek), who are here in the Assembly Chamber.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for accepting our invitation to take part in this debate; it will ensure that we have a more comprehensive discussion of this issue.

First and foremost, allow me to make a general remark.

I read with great interest, and sometimes with sadness, the criticism of the scope of this Congress fact‑finding mission. I even received abusive letters in my municipality in Brittany. I simply want to remind you, very calmly, that the sole purpose of this fact‑finding mission was to clarify the situation concerning the refusal by the Flemish Minister of the Interior, Marino Keulen, to appoint three candidates for mayor elected, and indeed comfortably elected, in three municipalities with special language arrangements in the Flemish Region.

I should like you to remind the representative of the Minister that we Congress members are not activists involved in Belgium intercommunal debate. We do not want to stigmatise the Flemish Region or its Minister of the Interior. In fact, to be frank, Flanders is not our overriding concern! We are an international delegation from the Council of Europe Congress and we visited Belgium simply to verify that Belgium was complying with the obligations it undertook in 2004, when it ratified the European Charter of Local Self‑Government.

At the request of the Bureau of the Chamber of Local Authorities, Dobrica Milovanovic, the Chamber of Regions Rapporteur on Belgium, and I visited Belgium on 13 and 14 May 2008.

I reported on this fact‑finding mission at the plenary session last May, and I think I need to draw your attention to the main points of the resolution and recommendation approved by the Institutional Committee on 31 October last, on which you are going to decide.

I shall remind you of the facts, which are quite straightforward:

Three candidates for mayor stood for office in municipal elections held in October 2006 in three municipalities with so‑called special language arrangements on the outskirts of Brussels in the Flemish Region. The number of seats scored by their respective lists was sufficient for them to be comfortably elected by their municipal majority (Linkebeek: 10 seats out of 15; Krainhem: 18 seats out of 23 and Wezembeek-Oppem: 18 seats out of 23).

However, under the Flemish legislation in force, it falls to the Minister of the Interior of the Flemish Government to appoint them. Yet Minister Keulen refused to appoint them on the grounds that they had deliberately sent the voting papers in French to French electors and in Dutch to Dutch electors. According to the Flemish Minister, they should have sent all the voting papers in Dutch and only subsequently in French where expressly requested by the electors who so wished. Also, the mayors allegedly allowed the use of French by some members of their municipal council during the latter’s meetings, although the only authorised language is Dutch. According to the Flemish Minister of the Interior, the mayors thus broke the law on several occasions. To date, they are “acting mayors” and their position in their municipal councils is that of first deputy mayor.

As a result, these three municipalities currently have no appointed mayors, despite election results that were at the very least honourable, judging by the number of votes each one of the three received.

During our visit we met representatives of the Flemish Government and Parliament, including Minister Marino Keulen, the three non‑appointed mayors, who are present here today, and many other Belgian political leaders.

The political context surrounding this mission was particularly sensitive. Indeed it still is. But contrary to what was sometimes claimed in the press, it had nothing to do with the current institutional and political problems, although – let’s not be naïve – it was used on both sides to fuel Belgium’s institutional debate.

I shall tell you something in confidence: our delegation is neither pretentious, nor daring, nor indeed foolhardy enough to want to get involved in the institutional political debate in Belgium! There are limits to masochism.

In any case, that is not the role entrusted to us and we did not at any time deviate from the mandate given to us by the Bureau of the Chamber of Local Authorities.

The tool we use is the European Charter of Local Self‑Government; it is our map and our compass. The Charter has remained our sole concern, our only reference, and has guided our work to date. Belgium signed it and ratified it and the Charter, as ratified, even with reservations, takes precedence over its national legislation, which must comply with the Charter.

Dobrica Milovanovic and I have mainly noted 5 issues which constitute breaches of the Charter:

The first issue which raises a problem under the Charter is the disruption in the management of public affairs caused by this failure to appoint the three mayors. Since January 2007, the three municipalities have had no appointed mayors. This has disrupted the proper management of the municipalities for the past two years, and that is not a reasonable timeframe.

The second issue concerns participation in local political life. A majority of the population of the three municipalities with special language arrangements is French‑speaking; the obligation for municipal councillors to speak only Dutch (including when sending voting papers) is certainly not going to encourage them to participate in local political life. We consider that in signing and ratifying the Charter, Belgium undertook to comply with its provisions, especially those on participation. Which European government could decide today to deliberately prevent people from taking part in democratic institutions on language grounds?

The third issue concerns the disproportionate nature of the decision not to appoint the mayors by comparison with the faults allegedly committed by these mayors. It would have been more reasonable to consider mere disciplinary proceedings; that would have shown greater respect for the quality of good community relations and would have served to address the real problems.

The fourth issue again seems to me to blatantly contradict the very spirit of the Charter, since it concerns the – substantial – supervision exercised by the regional government over these municipalities with so‑called special language arrangements. In our view, the Minister’s discretionary power is an excessive form of interference by the executive, which far exceeds straightforward supervision in a democracy.

Finally, the fifth and last issue concerns non‑compliance with Congress Recommendation 131, adopted in 2003. As early as 2003, the recommendation encouraged the Belgian authorities to free themselves from the system of appointing mayors and opt for a system whereby mayors would be elected by the municipal council or by the voters. I would point out that Wallonia has amended its legislation to that effect and has therefore succeeded in revising its system for appointing mayors, without its regional identity being seriously affected as far as I know.

Those are the five issues that we regard as posing problems and which deserve to be addressed by the Belgian government.

We recommend in particular that the Belgian authorities encourage the Flemish Minister of the Interior to speedily appoint the three mayors whose lists were elected, so as to put an end to the disruption in the management of public affairs.

However, just recently, on 24 November last, Minister Keulen decided otherwise and again refused to appoint the three mayors, creating quite a stir in the media. This decision of course has serious consequences for the three persons who were not appointed, but also, more generally, for Flanders and Belgium.

I am not a specialist in Belgian affairs and I do not know if it is still possible for the Minister to reconsider his refusal to appoint them. But if that is not possible, well then, let fresh elections be held! But under the Charter, which Belgium has signed and ratified, it is unacceptable in our view that a situation of this kind should drag on any longer.

Our recommendation also asks the Belgian authorities to encourage a revision of the language laws, especially as regards their application in municipalities with so‑called special language arrangements, so as to allow both languages, French and Dutch, to be used at municipal council meetings by the municipal councillors, the mayor and the deputy mayors alike.

I know some will view this as a provocation, but attentive and reasonable people will simply see it as common sense.

Lastly, as regards our resolution, I invite you, the members of the Chamber of Local Authorities, to decide in favour of general monitoring of Belgium on local democracy issues, with a special focus on developments concerning the breaches of the Charter that we observed during this visit.

Belgium’s current political situation is neither simple nor easy. Yet I believe that in spite of these difficulties, our Belgian talking partners deserve that we should speak to them truthfully and frankly.

It is not for nothing that Belgium is a founding member of the Council of Europe: Belgium has remained one of the Council’s most active members for more than 50 years precisely because it shared all the Organisation’s values, and it is because of this unfailing commitment that I hope we will be able to work together to improve local democracy in Belgium where necessary.

That is our aim, which we invite the whole Belgian political community to share.

Thank you.

I give the floor to my co-rapporteur Dobrica Milovanovic, who may wish to add something.