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Municipalities with linguistic facilities

The municipalities with linguistic facilities or municipalities with facilities (Dutch: "faciliteitengemeenten", French: "communes à facilités") are a group of Belgian municipalities with special law provisions to protect rights of linguistic minorities.

Basically, inhabitants of these municipalities which do no speak the language of the Region, e.g. French-speakers in Flanders and Dutch-speakers in Wallonia, may obtain all administrative documents in their mother tongue.

Table of contents
1 List of municipalities with facilities
2 History
3 See also
4 External links

List of municipalities with facilities

Municipalities in Flanders with French-language facilities

In Flanders there are two kinds of municipalities with facilities. Rim municipalities (randgemeenten in Dutch) are situated in the Flemish rim around the Brussels-Capital Region and form part of Flemish Brabant. The other municipalities are called language border municipalities (taalgrensgemeenten in Dutch) because they lie close to the border with Wallonia.

Rim municipalities

Wezembeek-Oppem and Kraainem are sometimes referred to as the "Oostrand" (literally "East rim" in English).

Language border municipalities

Municipalities in Wallonia with Dutch-language facilities

Municipalities in Wallonia with German-language facilities

Municipalities in Wallonia belonging to the German language region with French-language facilities

History

This is a stubby section - it needs clean up and more information

1958: Public unrest between French-speakers and Dutch-speakers during the Brussels World Exhibition, e.g. at Wemmel.

Before 1961: last linguistic census in Belgium.

1962 and August 2 1963's laws.

Flemish ministerial circular letters: Martens (?) and Peeters circular letters.

Lili Nabholz-Haidegger, a Swiss deputy, made a report on September 5, 2002 inviting Belgium to recognise the fact that there is a French-speaking minority in Flanders. This report was approved by the Council of Europe.

See also

External links