Bilingualism within the Brussels police force is falling, with less than half of officers able to communicate in both French and Dutch. The figures come from Interior Minister Bernard Quintin in response to a parliamentary question from Barbara Pas, leader of the Vlaams Belang parliamentary group in the Chamber of Representatives.
“For a Flemish person who needs to call on the police in our bilingual capital, there is now a greater chance that they will not be able to be helped in Dutch,” says Pas. Figures On 1 January, 3,008 of the 6,672 police officers in Brussels were bilingual, or 45.1%. In 2021, the figure was 51.6%.
98.1% of police staff are proficient in French, while 46.9% know Dutch. “For Dutch speakers, receiving service in their own language is increasingly a matter of luck,” says Pas. Forty of the 292 new officers recruited in Brussels in 2025 were Dutch-speaking. Only 8% of the new recruits held the required language certificate.
“If more than 9 out of 10 new recruits are hired without a language certificate, it is hardly surprising that bilingualism is continuing to erode,” says Pas, who points out that communication can be of vital importance, particularly within the police and security services.
Vlaams Belang believes a structural federal approach is needed, in particular effective monitoring of compliance with the language law in recruitment and appointments. “The figures show that a few optional language courses are not making any difference,” says Pas.
