On May 13, Flemish Minister of Interior Administration, Marino Keulen (Open VLD), met with the commission from the Council of Europe investigating the issue concerning three non-appointed mayors of the facilitated municipalities of Kraainem, Wezembeek-Oppem and Linkebeek. Keulen said he was confident that he had “a watertight judicial dossier and decisive arguments” at his disposal.
Although the municipalities are predominantly inhabited by Francophones who elect French-speaking representatives and request the administration address them in French, the concerned areas are still part of the Flemish region, which legally requires the administration and the mayors to use Dutch as a first language, insisted Keulen.
The law was broken when the nonappointed mayors distributed French rather than Dutch election forms to French speaking electors during the 2006 and 2007 campaigns. Keulen maintained that the act was contrary to the federal language legislation, to the provincial governor’s guidelines and to the “Peeters circular” determining that all municipal government documents must first be distributed in Dutch and then in French, only if formally requested by the inhabitants.
Some officials said they wondered if the European Council’s commission will find the technicality a strong enough argument to justify not appointing democratically elected representatives.