Brussels

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Brussels in winter

Brussels (French Bruxelles, Dutch Brussel, German Brüssel) is a major city in Belgium and its capital.

Contemporary Brussels

Brussels is first a city located in the center of Belgium, but it sometimes refers to the main municipality of the Brussels-Capital Region. This municipality inside Brussels is correctly named The City of Brussels (Bruxelles-Ville or Ville de Bruxelles in French, de Stad Brussel in Dutch), which is one of 19 municipalities that make up the Brussels Capital-Region.

See also: List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region.

The Capital Region is a region of Belgium in its own right, alongside Flanders and Wallonia, and is geographically an enclave of Flanders. On January 1, 2003, the region had a population of 992,041 for 161.382 km² which gives a population density of 6,309 inhabitants per km². Regions being one part of Belgium's complicated 'state' institutions, the 3 communities are the other half: the Brussels people belong thus either to the Flemish community, either (for most of them) to the French community.

After their creation, the Flemish regional and community institutions were united, and the unified Flemish legislative council, the 'Vlaamse Raad', now called 'Vlaams Parlement' established its government and ministeries in Brussels. Brussels is also the capital of the French Community of Belgium (Communauté française Wallonie-Bruxelles in French).

Two of the three main institutions of the European Union, the European Commission and the Council of the European Union, have their headquarters in Brussels. The third main institution of the European Union, the European Parliament, also has parliamentary chambers in Brussels (its plenary sessions are held at its headquarters in Strasbourg). This leads to a another meaning, especially in British English, where the city is used as a metonym for some aspects of the Union. "Brussels is considering banning raunchy TV images"

Brussels is also the political seat of the NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and the Western European Union (WEU).

The language frontier divides Belgium into a northern, Dutch-speaking, region and a southern, French-speaking, region. The Brussels region is officially bilingual (see however the linguistic history of Brussels in this article's history section), but the majority of its population speaks French. Smaller immigrant communities still speak the mothertongue of their country of origin, being Berber, Arabic, Italian, Spanish and others, but a lot of them are also French-speakers.

Brussels is served by Brussels International Airport, located in the municipality of Zaventem.

See also: List of Minister-Presidents of Brussels, Brussels sprout, Grote Markt / Grand-Place, La Monnaie, Atomium, Manneken Pis, Belgian cuisine.

History

This section includes Brussels' linguistic history.

The Brussels Capital Region is currently home for both French- and Dutch-speakers. French was for several centuries only spoken by the haute-bourgeoisie and the nobility. It started becoming only a popular language under the French regime, and especially after 1830, by the immigration of many French (revolutionnaries and others) and many Walloon, attracted by the new Belgian authorities. As in 1830, only the haute-bourgeoisie and the nobility (less than 1% of the population) had voting rights, these groups wanted to fashion the new state along their personal preferences. As a result, they had to attract many French-speaking Walloon to man the public services.

The area, which is geographically situated in the south of Flanders, was still mostly Dutch-speaking until the middle of the 20th century. During the 19th and 20th century, more and more French-speaking civil servants coming from Wallonia settled in Brussels and persistent social, administrative, cultural and political pressure made many Flemings switch their vernacular to French.

The Brussels-Capital region nowadays is officially French-Dutch bilingual and some municipalities in Flanders around Brussels have special linguistic facilities to protect the right of the French-speaking minorities. However, there are reports and claims of discrimination both inside the Brussels-Capital region against Dutch-speakers and outside Brussels against French-speakers. "Both the Walloons and the Flemish treat people of their own group in the same way as anonymous individuals while discriminating against individuals of the other group" [1], [2]. There are also reports of discriminations against foreigners [3].

On the one hand, some claim that there is a strong pressure from French-speakers against the bilingual status inside the Brussels-Capital region. There are reports and claims of discriminations against Dutch-speakers. Early 90's, an official declaration from the regional government claimed that social housing was reserved for 100% for those applying in French. As late as 2003, Rudy Demotte, the federal minister of Public Health and a French-speaking socialist, is reported to have acknowledged that urgent medical services discriminated against Flemings, in the sense that the could not use their own language.

On the other hand, there are reports and claims of discriminations against French-speaker in the outskirt of Brussels regarding access to health care, using their own language, and social housing [4].

Universities

Brussels has several universities, two of them being the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).

Miscellaneous

Brussels hosted the third Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne in 1930.

Brussels metro dates back to 1976.

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