A new pact for Brussels
A simpler, more inclusive and better-governed Brussels
The institutional issue of Brussels has always been very close to our movement's heart. For Vooruit.brussels, there is a great need for a better organised and simplified Region. This is the only way to achieve more solidarity and redistribution, more efficient spending of public finances and better service to citizens.
This is precisely why we had the Brussels Region thoroughly examined by the OECD, whose Metropolitan Review highlights a number of policy challenges that our movement has been addressing for over two decades. Indeed, the OECD confirms that the current administrative organisation of Brussels has a negative impact on economic growth, urban development, administrative transparency and efficiency, and the financial soundness of our Region. Vooruit.brussels has always taken the lead in advocating institutional reform to rationalise Brussels. We are ready to move this forward in a positive way with the only compass being the interests of the people of Brussels.
The Region will be 35 years old in 2024. High time to ask some existential questions about how things can be done differently and better.
With Vooruit.brussels we are therefore resolutely aiming for a new pact for Brussels:
- A rationalisation that could generate some one-and-a-half billion euros that can be invested in people rather than structures. In return, we demand fair funding for Brussels based on objective parameters. In return, we demand fair funding for Brussels based on objective parameters.
- A state reform where Brussels is present at the table as a full discussion partner, and does not simply foot the bill for what Flemings and Walloons agree among themselves.
- A more efficiently and coherently organised and governed Brussels by merging all 19 municipalities into one new City-Region of Brussels-Capital, coinciding with the current Capital Region.
- One city-region with unconditional guarantees of Dutch-speaking services.
- A new social contract with the people of Brussels: with more value for money (less money to structures, more to policy), more solidarity (through one CPAS, one administration, one budget and one police zone), and more transparency and better governance (stronger accountability and democracy).
- It is literally money time: we face enormous budgetary challenges in the coming legislature, after the many crisis expenditures that the current government was forced to make to safeguard our economy, the welfare and prosperity of its citizens. The institutional agenda cannot be put off any longer.
Where others are already hoping for new sources of funding, we state very clearly that there can be no further funding for Brussels without also implementing the necessary internal reforms. Internal city reform consequently goes hand in hand with state reform. For the former exercise, we have a lot of levers in our own hands to get our act together; the latter requires constitutional reform.
Concretely, these are our proposals for a reformed Brussels
A reform of the city and the state: one city-region, many city districts
Brussels has too many administrations, too many politicians and too many administrations making everyone competent and no one accountable. The Brussels Region is institutionally a region but socio-economically a city. The financial situation of our Region forces a fundamental and thorough internal reform. Unified governance is not an institutional fetish, but a means to make the life of the people of Brussels more qualitative and equitable.
- The municipalities, CPASs and police zones are therefore being merged and, together with the region, the agglomeration and the province, are being replaced by one capital city-region called Brussels-Capital.
- In parallel, we are working on policy close to the people and adapted to the individuality of each district. There will therefore be more districts or city areas than current municipalities, such as Laeken, Neder-Over-Heembeek or Haren. The city districts will follow logical boundaries and for matters in which district boundaries should play no role, policy will be transferred to the city-region.
- Citizens can go to local antennas for information and administration from both the city-region and the city district. There, they can apply for a parking card or identity card, see a social adviser or participate in a citizens' panel.
- The CPASs are also merged into one CPAS that is answerable to the capital council. Every Brussels resident is entitled to the same social assistance funded from the general budget at the level of the city-region.
- The current six police zones will be merged into 1 police zone with 1 chief of police under the direction of the Minister-President/Mayor. To increase the role of the proximity police, manned local police antennas will be set up.
- We are carrying out the Optiris reform exercise to pave the way towards a more strategically driven public administration, fighting the proliferation of agencies and initiating a countermovement towards a downsizing, clustering and, ultimately the merger, of different public administrations, agencies and organisms (such as, for example, the different organisms responsible for housing and housing production).
- Swimming pools, sports complexes and stadia are managed by the city-region, which guarantees equal tariffs for all Brussels residents and opening hours and renovation that are aligned.
- As we merge the municipalities into one new Brussels-Capital, it will finally become possible to grant the right to vote for international Brussels residents.
A new architecture for community competences: simpler, more efficient and respectful of the Dutch language
It is not only the relationship between municipalities and region that makes Brussels unnecessarily complex today; the roll-out of community responsibilities as it has historically taken shape also creates an administrative tangle in which the inhabitants of Brussels get lost and in which the guarantee of Dutch-language services is often hard to find.
We therefore want to review the current model regarding the exercise of community competences and argue for a new division of tasks between the various authorities involved.
We strive for a greatly simplified institutional architecture with a legally anchored Dutch-speaking offer in terms of the existing community responsibilities on Brussels territory: education, welfare, culture, youth and sports. Always with two important goals in mind: an efficient and accessible government, at the service of all Brussels residents, and firm guarantees of Dutch-language services for every Brussels resident who chooses them.
- By analogy with the merging of the 19 municipalities and CPAS's within the city-region of Brussels-Capital, the GGC, the VGC and the COCOF are also incorporated in the same capital structure.
- To guarantee proper Dutch-language service at each of these competences, it is legally stipulated that 30% of the available Capital Region budgets must be spent annually on an offer that’s only available in Dutch.
- Why change what works? In our model, Flanders retains full competence for Dutch-language education and childcare in Brussels. This applies equally to higher education institutions, including the UZ Brussel.
- Given the merger of municipalities, all former Brussels municipal schools and crèches are united in a Capital network with Brussels-Capital as the organising authority.
- We are moving away from bilingual services within the welfare and health policy as theoretically existed within the current GGC institutions. In practice, this turns out to be an illusion. We therefore opt for a new Capital City model with an offer of both unilingual Dutch-speaking, unilingual French-speaking and bilingual care facilities and services, organised under the authority of Brussels Capital City.
- Patients within Brussels should themselves be able to request to be taken to the nearest Dutch-speaking hospital (in this case UZ Brussel) instead of the nearest if the time difference is no more than 12 minutes. We also impose multilingualism with at least bilingualism (NL-FR) for the emergency departments of all public, Brussels hospitals, and enforce it by making it a condition of recognition.
- Brussels Capital gets the competence for urban/'local' culture, youth and sports policy and we work towards a real Brussels sports competition between (NL- and FR-language) sports clubs.