The Flemish liberal party, Open VLD, wants to launch a wholesale reform of Brussels' institutions, which would include a reduced number of MPs, municipality mergers and an end to the capital's linguistic commissions.
The plans were put forward by Brussels' Budget Minister Sven Gatz and the Belgian Budget State Secretary Alexia Bertrand in an interview on Thursday. With these proposals, the Flemish liberals hope to reduce the effects of Belgium's linguistic divide within the capital.
Among their proposals, Gatz and Bertrand called for the Brussels Parliament to be slimmed down, with 50 MPs instead of 89. Of these MPs, 40 of them would be French speakers with the other 10 Dutch speakers.
The change would allow for both Francophone and Flemish parties to combine their electoral lists, as Open VLD is planning to do with its French-speaking counterpart, MR (Reformist Movement).
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They also called for the capital's linguistic commissions: the Flemish VGC, the Francophone COCOF and the Common Community Commission to be abolished.
They finished the interview by calling on Brussels municipalities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants to merge with a neighbouring commune. This would mean merging every single municipality other than Schaerbeek, Anderlecht and the City of Brussels.
