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Linkebeek's voter summons letters "conflict with language laws"
Flanders’ interior minister Geert Bourgeois (pictured) has overturned a decision by the Linkebeek city council to send out the letters calling on residents to vote in both French and Dutch, depending on the language of the recipient. These letters are sent to everyone registered to vote in a municipality. Voters must bring the letter with them to the polling station.
Linkebeek is one of six municipalities located in the belt around Brussels that are referred to as “facility municipalities”: Although they are located in Flemish Brabant where the official administrative language is Dutch, French speakers living there can request administrative paperwork in French.
Linkebeek’s decision, said Bourgeois, “is in conflict with the language laws ... confirmed by a decision of the Council of State on December 23, 2004 and June 19, 2008. The law states that the municipality of Linkebeek is required to send out the summons to vote in Dutch and only Dutch.”
According to the law, after the voter summons letters are received, French speakers can then request a letter in French.
Meanwhile, authorities in Wezembeek-Oppem, another facility municipality, plan to meet on May 14 to decide how to send out their letters.
Comments
This is pathetic
I agree. It is pathetic. I lived many years in the divided South Africa and everything that was sent out by governing entities was in both Afrikaans and English. United you stand divided you fall - it is just a question of time in the case of the latter. With the government already spending more than half of the average Belgian taxpayer's income and making up more than half the GDP it is time that its top management and changing political masters looked seriously at its own efficiency and in a period of innovation placed that on its prior list for itself rather than for the private sector who are the wealth creators. I have been married to a Belgian for over 30 years and understand the sensitivities of Belgian history - it is time for positive leadership in a seriously competitive world.
Truly pathetic. And that goes for The Bulletin, which has now decided that all Brussels street names/Communes/etc. are to be in Dutch. In the old Bulletin, it was in French, because, gosh, that's what most people in Brussels use. Then to be PC, both languages were provided. Now, it's only Dutch. For some localities, we understand Grote Markt (even though 90% of people in Brussels say Grand Place). The problem is for the less obvious ones. So, as a reader, we're then forced to go and look it up just because the editors of this newspaper have been hardened nationalists. Now we know where they get it from....