Two small political parties in Belgium, Volt and Voor U, are angry at Flemish public broadcaster VRT and commercial broadcaster VTM for being excluded from their debates, voting tests and general coverage of the elections on 9 June.
As the pan-European party Volt was not invited to VRT's European Parliament lead candidates debate on 31 May (tonight), the party took the decision to court. However, the Brussels' Dutch-speaking Court of First Instance now ruled that there are "insufficient grounds to intervene" in VRT's decision.
"We are of course disappointed that Volt will not participate in the debate, but we respect the judge's ruling," said Volt co-leader Carlo Giudice in a press release. "We also welcome the court’s support of the principle that public broadcasters do have an obligation towards smaller parties."
The judge emphasised VRT's public obligation to be non-partisan and inclusive, and noted that any exclusion of smaller parties must be justified with objective and fact-based reasons. Given the rapid summary proceedings, however, the judge stated that it could not be proven that the VRT's selection criteria were unreasonable.
'Silent protest'
At the same time, new Belgian party Voor U (founded in late 2023 by former Open VLD politician Els Ampe) is organising a silent protest action against Flemish commercial broadcaster VTM, which is organising a bus tour to speak to several lead candidates of the traditional parties in the Region.
"The idea is to form a chain around the VTM bus of approximately 35 people with a black cross pasted over our mouths with a small square 'Voor U' sticker in the middle," the party said. "It is extremely important for the final week that we can be in the spotlight."
Previously, the party also started a lawsuit against the public broadcaster VRT. According to Voor U leader Els Ampe, VRT did not respect the principle of equality and plurality by not including the Voor U party in its voting test.
The court ruled that VRT must state now state that Voor U was not included in the voting test at the time the result of the vote test was displayed, but did not follow the party's demand to be included in the test itself.
