Nearly three out of five appointments within municipal administrations and CPAS were suspended last year by the vice-governor of the Brussels-Capital administrative district. The latter is responsible for verifying whether the decisions of local authorities, in terms of recruitment and appointment of staff, comply with the legislation on the use of languages in administrative matters.
This proportion of suspended appointments has been fairly stable since 2017, but does not worry the vice-governor any less. “The situation at the level of local authorities in Brussels remains very problematic”, comments Jozef Ostyn in his annual report. Out of 3,515 decisions submitted to its services by municipalities and CPAS, 2,100 were suspended because they conflicted with language laws.
The Vice-Governor recalls that local authorities must also ensure that they offer bilingual services to the population. He notes with some astonishment that it is sometimes during the development of a new computer application for the processing of certain files that the designers have not been sufficiently attentive to the use of languages.
The vice-governor also highlights the federal and regional public services and companies active in the capital. “When developing their online platforms and other digital or automated communication channels, federal public services and businesses must also pay ab initio attention to the proper full bilingualism of their services in Brussels, which – according to repeated complaints – n is not yet sufficiently the case.”
“The figures in this report and the growing number of complaints indicate that the law and the rights of citizens (in linguistic matters) are still being violated on a large scale, not only in local authorities but also in public services and regional businesses and federal“, he concludes.