Brussels’ newly appointed minister-president, Boris Dilliès, has barely settled into office and is already facing scrutiny — not over policy, but over
language.
Over the weekend, Dilliès’ limited command of Dutch became a talking point after he struggled to answer journalists’ questions in the language. Speaking later to RTBF, he acknowledged the issue candidly and promised to address it quickly.
“It’s been 20 years since I last spoke Dutch regularly,” he said on Monday. “At the time, I worked in the private sector for a Dutch-speaking company. My Dutch wasn’t perfect, but I could manage. Today, it’s clearly not at that level anymore.”
Dilliès asked for some leniency, pointing to the abrupt nature of his appointment. He said he was informed at 7:15 on Saturday morning that he would become minister-president and was facing the press less than an hour later.
Still, the former mayor of Uccle did not try to downplay the symbolic weight of the issue in a officially bilingual region. “I owe the people of Brussels a good knowledge of Dutch. That’s essential. On this point, I plead guilty,” he said, adding that he intends to work intensively on improving his language skills in the short term.
On Saturday morning, the Brussels Parliament elected Dilliès as head of the regional government alongside four new ministers, marking a fresh start for Brussels’ leadership.
Language, however, remains a politically sensitive fault line. The dominance of French in Brussels has long frustrated Flemish parties and institutions. Several hospitals in the capital continue to struggle to provide services in Dutch, despite legal obligations, while Dutch-speaking doctors increasingly refuse new patients, citing staff shortages and long waiting lists.
These concerns prompted Flemish minister for Brussels Cieltje Van Achter to launch the ToTaalplan Nederlands last summer, backed by more than €1 million in project funding. The initiative aims to expand opportunities to learn, practise and use Dutch in everyday life across the capital. “Together, we are building a Brussels where Dutch is not only learned, but also lived,” she said at the time.
For now, however, language policy is unlikely to top the Brussels government’s list of priorities. The region is grappling with escalating drug-related violence, rising homelessness and an increasingly fragile budget. For Dilliès, restoring fiscal stability over the next three years alone would already count as a major political achievement — and one that may ultimately overshadow the early controversy over his Dutch. Photo by Cabinet Uccle, Wikimedia commons.