Brussels is the strategic place where French-speaking and Dutch-speaking administrators actively cooperate for everyone’s benefit, so it shouldn’t become the “unfortunate symbol” of split communities. This is what the President of the Brussels Parliament and former Brussels President-Minister, Charles Picqué, said at the opening of the Fête de l’Iris on Saturday.
“I would prefer not to talk about Belgo-Belgian institutions at this time, when other issues must take priority”, Mr Picqué told those present. He also spoke about N-VA President Bart De Wever and the N-VA head for the Brussels Parliament, Johan Van den Driessche, saying they were in favour of Brussels being managed by Flanders and Wallonia.
The President of the Brussels Parliament thinks the Brussels Region is a major element in the institutional balance of the country, where French-speakers and Dutch-speakers “actively cooperate and work towards common goals that benefit everyone” every day.
While he admitted there was “a temporary hiccup” from time to time, Charles Picqué said “Brussels should never become the unfortunate symbol of identities being split. They should mix harmoniously rather than oppose each other”.
“Do we really want to have segregation in multicultural Brussels, which has become a synonym for Europe? Giving Brussels residents different social or tax statuses according to their language contradicts our goal of having cohesion and equality between citizens living in the same city”, he stated.
Charles Picqué says that although some people may want a new institutional reform that benefits them, it would not happen by taking benefits away from others.
“And if there are people that want to paralyse our region from the inside, they would be entering a totally different unpredictable world, where the very foundation of communitarian pacification would be called into question”, he warned.
(Source: Belga)
