Herent Mayor Luk Draye must answer to the governor of Flemish Brabant on account of an automatic out-of-office email. Mayor Draye drafted an out-of-office message in Belgium’s three national languages, Dutch, French and German. An act of basic courtesy, says Draye, although in doing so he breached Belgian language legislation.
The disputed out-of-office message was sent whilst the mayor was away on a work trip to Guatemala. Draye drafted the message in Dutch, French and German. “Purely out of courtesy,” he explains. “I do occasionally receive emails in German or French. It therefore seemed only natural to me to draft my out-of-office message in the three national languages, especially as it was not a policy decision.”
Language legislation in administrative matters
Nevertheless, an anonymous complaint was lodged with the Flemish interior department. According to the complainant, Draye had allegedly breached the language legislation governing administrative matters. This legislation stipulates that a local authority in the Dutch-speaking region may only communicate in Dutch.
Provincial Governor Jan Spooren is investigating the alleged breach of the law. Draye has already promised to cooperate fully with the investigation. “The governor has asked for a motivation of the trilingual message. We will be happy to provide him with one,” he says.
A strange country
The whole affair is a storm in a teacup, says Draye. “I assume that far worse offences are committed, and that any penalty will therefore be proportionate to the offence,” he explains. “In some respects, we are quite a strange country. In the meantime, surely we shouldn’t need to be afraid of dispatching a message in a language that is not our mother tongue?”
The Flemish nationalist party N-VA, on the opposition benches on Herent council, takes a slightly different view. “At first glance, this might seem like a minor issue, but in Brussels and the Vlaamse Rand, the Flemish borderlands, we can see where this leads when language legislation is relaxed,” says councillor Esther Deroo. “Think of medical procedures where patients are not assisted in their own language, or citizens who cannot file a police report in Dutch. Language legislation is there for a reason!”