How a fight over traffic rules is destabilizing Brussels politics

BRUSSELS — Politics is stuck in traffic.

Ahead of municipal elections in Brussels on Sunday, a feud between the capital’s French and Dutch-speaking parties is threatening to unravel a delicate political compromise needed to govern the city.

At the heart is a clash over a plan to cut car pollution. The tipping point came earlier this month when local lawmakers voted to delay tighter pollution limits for cars driving into the traffic-clogged Belgian capital that were originally due to take effect in January.

A French-speaking majority passed the decision, brushing aside a Dutch-speaking minority and triggering an impasse in ongoing talks to build a regional coalition to govern the greater Brussels region.

A clash of that scale “hasn’t happened in Brussels in the past 20 years,” said Elke Van den Brandt, Brussels’ outgoing mobility minister and a member of the Dutch-speaking Greens party. It’s a French-speaking majority saying that it could “mathematically eliminate the Dutch-speaking minority,” she said.

It’s a very Belgian problem.

Belgium is mainly divided into two language groups. French speakers in the southern Wallonia region account for about 30 percent of the country’s population. Dutch speakers in northern Flanders represents about 60 percent. About 10 percent of Belgians live in the Brussels region.

Brussels is mainly French-speaking; Dutch speakers are a small minority, accounting for only about 8 percent of the region’s population. And yet, because of the principle that both communities should have equal representation, Dutch speakers get more seats in the Brussels regional assembly than their numbers would suggest: 17 of the parliament’s 89 seats and half the ministerial posts in the regional government. Every Brussels government also needs a majority in both language groups.

This month’s vote to delay the low emission zone plan upended that balance.

“De facto, it’s the protection of Dutch speakers in Brussels that’s being called into question,” said Dave Sinardet, professor of political science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. “It puts the whole of Brussels, and indeed perhaps even Belgium’s institutional balance, at risk,” he warned.

‘Elected to act’

Belgians in June voted to elect new federal and regional parliaments, as well as European Parliament representatives. The French-speaking liberal Reformist Movement (MR) became Brussels’ largest party with 21 assembly seats. The liberals quickly sealed a coalition deal with the centrist Les Engagés and the Socialists on the French-speaking side, but talks on the Dutch-speaking end repeatedly floundered.

As talks stalled, a frustrated MR ran out of patience. With no prospect of a full-fledged government but with a majority in parliament, French-speaking parties put forward a plan to delay the new emission limits — without negotiating the text with Dutch-speaking counterparts.

“I wasn’t elected to wait, I was elected to act,” David Leisterh, the local leader of MR, said in an interview.

“Even though there’s no majority on the Dutch-speaking side … we just voted through two texts that will change the future of Brussels,” he also told his followers in a video message, hailing the vote as “historic.”

For Dutch-speaking parties, that’s exactly the problem.

The Greens, who became the largest Dutch-speaking party with 22 percent of the Dutch-speaking vote and four seats in the assembly, adamantly opposed the delay, arguing the limits are necessary to reduce harmful air pollution.

But even some Dutch-speaking parties in favor of a delay withheld their support, outraged over the lack of coordination. Van den Brandt warned of a “dangerous precedent.”

Despite his voting victory, Leisterh understands the tension he’s unleashed.

“We need to avoid that in the future, similar decisions are taken that could be considered a French-speaking measure, as opposed to a Dutch-speaking measure,” he told POLITICO. But he added that Brussels’ Dutch-speaking minority had tried and failed for months to forge a coalition, and the need to delay the pollution law was too urgent to wait any longer.

Besides, he argued, “it’s not illegal to go via the parliament … In fact, it’s quite democratic.”

Good Move vs. bad move

Belgium’s June election had many fearing it would result in deep divides between the country’s language groups and a highly fragmented political landscape.

But “all the problems that were expected in the rest of the country are all concentrated within the borders of the Brussels region,” Sinardet said.

As feuds between Brussels’ largest Dutch- and French-speaking parties drag on, both look at the election of mayors and local councils in the capital region’s 19 communes this Sunday to bolster their position.

A plan called Good Move, a collection of measures to reduce car traffic in residential areas and build new bike lanes, is at the heart of the Brussels impasse.

Implementation problems and heated protests have made Good Move politically toxic. “It’s a bit like Voldemort in Harry Potter,” Brussels Mayor Philippe Close told Flemish paper De Morgen this week: “You’re not actually allowed to say the words ‘Good Move’ anymore.”

In their campaigns for the June election, the French-speaking liberals of MR promised to kill off the plan over complaints that its brusque implementation had antagonized citizens.

But with Van den Brandt of the Dutch-speaking Greens in charge of mobility in the previous government, that party centered its campaign around its preservation.

A lot of the criticism around Good Move is “hot air,” Van den Brandt said. “If you ask [critics] what they want to change, it often boils down to the method and the name.” While those are up for debate, its targets — clean air, safe traffic, public transport and more space for pedestrians and cyclists — are not, she said.

That stand-off escalated further when Georges-Louis Bouchez, the national leader of MR and a key power player in Belgian politics, also entered the dispute, highlighting how small Brussels’ Dutch-speaking Greens were compared to his own party. When he threatened to not only use the regional assembly to delay the new car pollution limits but also to “put an end to Good Move,” Van den Brandt stormed away from the negotiating table.

“That’s not how a democracy works,” she complained.

Election fever

Sunday’s municipal votes could prove pivotal.

Although the election is for a lower level of power, in Brussels it will feature many of the same political players as the June regional election — often even with the same campaign platforms.

Good Move “has become the political stake of the local election,” said Sinardet, the political scientist.

Van den Brandt hopes that a strong result on Sunday will save the Good Move targets.

Leisterh said he hoped the local election will “underpin the June results and therefore confirm there’s a demand for change.”

If anything, the deadlock has also raised a demand for changes to Brussels’ electoral system.

Both Leisterh and Van den Brandt agreed that allowing lists that span Dutch-speaking and French-speaking parties and candidates could be a good idea.

The forced choice between Dutch and French language groups “is totally at odds with the sociological, socio-demographic reality of a multilingual region like Brussels,” Sinardet said.