“Since the previous attempt to form a Brussels government collapsed, there has been widespread fear that the region will be left with a caretaker administration until the next elections. To explain this deadlock, some point to the long-standing community conflict. Yet the Brussels blockage appears to be largely ideological in nature,” writes Cian De Greve (VUB). “The fact that politicians are once again taking the linguistic conflict out of cold storage therefore serves more to justify the impasse than to address genuine community issues in society.”
The Brussels model was designed to take the sting out of the linguistic conflict. Francophone and Dutch-speaking parties are allocated a fixed number of seats in the Brussels Parliament, and each language group must secure its own majority in order to form a joint government. For a long time, this model was reasonably successful: for more than 30 years, the two language communities were encouraged to govern the city together.
Paradoxically, some now point to this very model as the cause of the current impasse. Following the failed attempt by Yvan Verougstraete (Les Engagés) to form a government, PS leader Paul Magnette and Zakia Khattabi (Ecolo) claimed that Dutch-speaking parties are deliberately blocking Brussels from their position as a protected minority. At the same time, it is the PS that has intervened in the formation of a Dutch-speaking majority by vetoing the N-VA — a move that Anders (Open VLD) and CD&V, for their part, refuse to accept. In this way, the community conflict flares up once again. Yet the obstruction seems far more rooted in an ideological struggle between left and right.
A region like no other
To better understand the political dynamics of the Brussels-Capital Region, it is important to realise that, with 14,040 residents per MP, it operates much closer to the citizen than the Flemish and Walloon Regions, which have 57,812 and 49,230 residents per MP respectively. As a result, individual politicians in Brussels wield more power than at Belgium’s other political levels.
Especially when they command a loyal electorate, they do not need the backing of the national party to get elected. In this way, Brussels politicians do not necessarily have to submit meekly to party control.
“Once, Brussels politicians were able to bridge internal divides — something the current generation presents as impossible.”
In addition, the territory of the Region overlaps with several inter-municipal service providers. In practice, Brussels thus functions as a kind of city-region, autonomously managing various services and facilities across the capital agglomeration. This creates an entanglement between regional and municipal responsibilities. A good example is the “Good Move” mobility plan, a regional initiative aimed at keeping through-traffic out of densely populated neighbourhoods. However, since the Region is only responsible for regional roads, the practical implementation largely fell to the municipalities.
Such local policies are often perceived as detached from ideological conflict, as matters like refuse collection or roadworks are assumed to serve the general interest. This allowed a distinct Brussels political culture to develop for a long time — one that, both in terms of representation and substance, stood far apart from national politics. Dutch-speaking and Francophone parties found it easier to work together than at federal level. Nor did the parties delegated by each language group need to mirror one another. Thus Anders (Open VLD) has governed since 2004 without the MR and alongside the PS. Meanwhile, Francophone socialists have also governed with the Volksunie; the N-VA’s predecessor even held a ministerial post under Vic Anciaux in the Picqué I and II governments (PS).
Once, Brussels politicians were capable of bridging mutual divides — something the current generation now portrays as impossible. Yet Brussels politics does not exist in a vacuum and is equally subject to trends visible across all Western democracies.
The third way
To substantiate this, we must return to the world of 1989, when the Brussels-Capital Region was created. It was a period whose zeitgeist inspired Francis Fukuyama to proclaim the end of history: the Soviet model had collapsed, and the great ideological questions were supposedly behind us. In such a world, it seemed possible to pursue politics via a so-called “third way” between left and right. The assumption was that policy could be based on a single, objective and shared truth, transcending particular interests and promoting the common good.
Brussels was a child of its time. Since its inception, the Region has been governed by coalitions in which ideological coherence was a secondary concern. Socialists, liberals, Christian democrats, environmentalists, Francophone federalists and Flemish nationalists: every Brussels government included at least four of these different political families (the FDF was in a cartel with the MR until 2011, while AGALEV entered government in 1999 alongside the SP). In other words, compromises were inevitable — or, in this case, sugar had to be added to the gueuze.
Turbulent times
Over the past decade, however, much has changed. The stability and calm on which technocratic governance could rely have been shaken. Not only is the global order shifting; domestically too there is turbulence. The budgetary leeway that once bought ideological diversity has disappeared. This is the paradox of tight finances: the greater the financial pressure, the greater the need for decisive policy, yet the harder it becomes to strike a compromise that every partner can stomach.
At the same time, society once again faces profound challenges. As a result, the spectre of major ideological conflict is re-emerging. Across the democratic world, there is once more a clear struggle between the (far) left, the centre and the (far) right. In Brussels too, seemingly neutral issues turn into societal fault lines, as the conflict around Good Move demonstrated.
Worldviews collide in such a way that common ground becomes scarce. Parties that once helped to carry the Brussels project retreat into their own certainties. Where there was once a willingness to compromise, vetoes are now deployed to underline ideological purity. In short, in the past, a complex election result did not necessarily lead to the kind of paralysis we are witnessing today. What is missing now is the willingness to bridge ideological divides. As collateral damage, the community conflict risks flaring up once again.
That is something we should be wary of, because we all know where it leads. In these turbulent times, squabbling over the structure of the state is the last thing we need.