Good afternoon from a slightly less sweltering Avenue Louise. It’s Katie Westwood in your inboxes today.
Congratulations to all the athletes out there who ran the Brussels 20k on Sunday.
I had a slightly more sedate weekend, babysitting my friends’ daughter. Little Zsófi is a typical Brussels baby – and by that, I mean she is linguistically remarkable. Her mum speaks to her in Bulgarian and her dad speaks to her in Hungarian, and she babbles back in a mixture of the two.
When I spoke to her in English, Zsófi gave me the old stink eye, so I switched to French, which she hears every day at crèche. It seems the relentless march of English stops at the doors of Brussels nurseries, where French still reigns supreme.
The French language might still be dominant here, but politically, the French-speaking community is in all kinds of bother. The French Community of Belgium – one of the country’s six governments – is under significant pressure to reform amid a budget crisis and accusations of mismanagement.
The Socialist mayor of Charleroi, Thomas Dermine (PS), recently called the government “inefficient and obsolete". So should it be scrapped altogether and its responsibilities subsumed into the Walloon Government and the Brussels-Capital Region Government?
While that might seem like a no-brainer solution, as reporter Léa Huppe explains, nothing is ever straightforward in Belgian politics. For now at least, drastic changes seem unlikely.
Staying with the French-speaking community, Léa also gives an update on the strike action affecting Francophone schools in Brussels and Wallonia. So far this term, many pupils’ classes have been severely disrupted by teachers’ strikes, and this looks set to continue until the end of the school year. Find out more here.
Regular contributor Dominique Soenens has been in Ghent for The Brussels Times Magazine, finding out why the city has become such a magnet for tech investment in recent years, boasting four tech companies worth more than a billion euros, as well as 108 AI startups. Read Dominique's piece here.
Elsewhere, Political Editor Maïthé Chini gives you a rundown of all the rule changes and new measures coming into effect today in Belgium – including new labour laws and changes to tobacco packaging.
I also wanted to draw your attention to a nice story from the weekend. Reporter Anas El Baye spoke to a very austere-sounding coffee purveyor in Ixelles. Read more about the man's hole-in-the-wall establishment here.
Finally, I’ll leave you with a little something from Isabella Vivian to get you through your Monday: an overview of all the fabulous events coming up in Brussels this summer.
As always, if you have any comments, tips or suggestions to improve our coverage, please feel free to drop me an email at k.westwood@brusselstimes.com.
Bye for now!
Belgium in Brief is a free daily roundup of the top stories to get you through your coffee break conversations. To receive it straight to your inbox every day, sign up below:
1. ‘Inefficient and obsolete’: Should the Francophone Community of Belgium be scrapped?
Amid financial difficulties, mass teacher strikes and budget cuts, some are questioning why Brussels and Wallonia still have two governments and parliaments. Read more.
2. Tobacco products, vaccines and new labour laws: What changes in Belgium on 1 June?
From neutral packaging for all tobacco products and the right to be forgotten to a whole series of changed labour laws, June brings many changes to Belgium. Read more.
3. Despite the end of the Francophone teacher strike, disruption for pupils is far from over
The dispute comes less than a month before end-of-year examinations in French-speaking schools. Read more.
4. ‘High level of mistrust’: Over half of Belgians see US as an adversary
China is viewed as an adversary less often than the United States, among Belgian respondents. Read more.
5. The faceless man selling coffee through a literal hole in a wall in Brussels
At a new Brussels coffee spot, there are no tables, no baristas and no cosy interiors. Just one man and a QR code. Read more.
6. Open-air cinema and DJ sets: What’s coming up in Brussels this summer?
From the world-renowned flower carpet to cinema under a starry sky, here are some of the unmissable events coming up in Brussels this summer. Read more.
7. Brussels: The unsung European capital of skateboarding
Belgium ranks first in Europe for skateparks per inhabitant, but when we toured the city's most popular public skateparks, we came to find that most were empty. Read more.
