Immigration clouds voting rights debate in Belgium

Date: 22/01/1998

By Rory Watson

A POLITICALLY sensitive debate on the future status of immigrants in Belgium is complicating the government's efforts to honour its commitment to allow other EU nationals to vote in local elections.

Unless Premier Jean-Luc Dehaene can muster the two-thirds majority in parliament he needs to change the constitution, Belgium looks set to be condemned by the European Court of Justice for not meeting electoral responsibilities enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty.

In July, the European Commission began legal proceedings after singling Belgium out as the only EU member state which had failed to honour the pledge to give other Union nationals the right to vote and stand in European and local elections.

One other laggard - France - was warned by the Commission last year that it risked legal action if it continued to drag its feet, but Paris escaped an embarrassing court case once it began to process the necessary legislation through its parliament in the summer.

Now, almost six months on, the Belgian government's efforts to put the new rules in place are being made even more complex by a wider debate on the status of immigrants in the light of recent outbreaks of racial tension.

Dehaene would like voting rights to be extended to all EU nationals in time for local elections in the year 2000 and to non-Union citizens by 2006.

While the proposal appears to have the support of one of the prime minister's main coalition partners, the French-speaking Social Christians, it is being opposed by another - the francophone Socialist Party, which maintains that both groups should benefit from 2000 onwards.

Supporters of the two-tier approach argue that it offers the best possibility for meeting the EU obligations without enmeshing the planned changes in a wider debate, while opponents believe that electoral discrimination against non-Union nationals should be ended as soon as possible.

The stance taken by the country's smaller political parties will also be crucial if the two-thirds hurdle is to be successfully overcome.

A clear illustration of the difficulties the government faces in putting its EU responsibilities into practice and of the way the issue divides the electorate came at the Volksunie's recent congress.

Delegates decided that third-country citizens should be given voting rights at the same time as other EU nationals. But they went against the recommendations of the Flemish political party's leadership, and against the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty, by stating that the right to vote should not include the right to stand as a candidate.

They also want non-Belgian citizens to satisfy a series of specific conditions before they are granted voting rights.

These would stipulate that they must have lived in the commune for at least five years, must be paying taxes, must have enrolled personally on the electoral register and must speak Dutch.