Brussels, an undervalued asset
Brussels needs more money. That's the financial call for attention that the Brussels minister of Finance Guy Vanhengel launched this week. He's not the first one. But the thing is, Brussels is in need of some attention in any way, not only financial.
If Belgium is a strange country, its capital is it also. Entirely surrounded by Flemish territory, but with a extremely small minority of Flemings in the city. In the last regional elections, Guy Vanhengel, was the most popular Flemish politician. He only needed 4.500 votes to win that Brussels-Flemish political pop-poll.
One of the problems of Brussels is the small size of the region. About 300,000 commuters work in Brussels, but pay their taxes in Flanders or Wallonia, where they live.More than 50 percent of the jobs in Brussels are taken by commuters. This creates a paradox: the capital creates 20 percent of the Belgian GDP, but the Belgian tax man only gets 8.4 percent of his revenues from the people who live in Brussels.
But the story of Brussels is not only about taxes. It's about Flemish national feelings too. Quite a lot of Flemish politicians don't want to encourage people to speak French in Flanders, even if they only live ten or twenty kilometers away from the heart Brussels.
French speaking politicians see it the other way round. They want to be able to get votes from French speaking people in Flanders. For that reason, they favor an geographical extension of the Brussels region. For the reasons mentioned above, there is a 'no pasaran' for this idea in Flanders.
The result: a capital as a motherless child. The most striking image of this are the official maps of the Flemish region that show a whole were Brussels is.
Brussels, a motherless child: It could use more money. It could use more attention from the public opinion in Flanders. Instead of fearing that the capital would expand, they could embrace the most international city on its territory. In times of globalisation, world cities with an international brand name, are strong assets. Brussels is such an asset, alas undervalued by its owners.
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