Chronology

Legislation

1873: language use in criminal proceedings: use of Dutch officially recognized

1878: language use in public administration: use of Dutch or both languages in communications of civil servants with lower authorities and the public

1883: language use in state-run secondary education: a greater role given to Dutch as a subject and as a language of instruction

1898: language use in legislation and government decrees (Equality Law)

1910: language use in secondary education

1913: language use in the army

1914: Primary Education Act, art.15: language of instruction = mother-tongue or customary language of the child

1921: language use in public administration: monolingualism introduced (with  a series of exceptions)

1928: language use in the army: monolingual companies & bilingual army command

>>1930: Dutch-language State University of Gent opens its doors

1932: language use in public administration: monolingualism fully applied

1932: language use in primary and secondary education: id.

1935: language use in the law courts: id.

1962: Dutch-French language boundary fixed in law

>>1963: language use in education, public administration and justice: monolingual status further strengthened

1967: official Dutch translation of the Belgian constitution

1968: Catholic University of Leuven becomes exclusively Dutch-speaking; francophone Catholic University transferred to Wallonia

>>1970: first constitutional reform – establishment of Flemish and French-speaking community institutions

1980: second constitutional reform – establishment of three regions (Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels)

1988: third constitutional reform – further transfer of powers to the regions

1992/93: fourth constitutional reform – Belgium becomes a federal state

History of the Flemish Movement

1830-1840: emergence of the Flemish Movement

1840: first petition

1856: ´Grievances Commissions´

1890-1910: the ideas of Julius MacLeod, August Vermeylen, Lodewijk de Raet and Frans van Cauwelaert radicalize the Flemish Movement´s ideology and programme

1914-1918: Word War I – ´activists´ collaborate with the German occupying regime; Front Movement organizes itself in the Belgian army

1918- 1933: majority supports van Cauwelaert´s “Minimum Programme” (i.e. a monolingual status for Flanders); minority advocates self-government

1933-1940: growing success of the Flemish National Union (VNV), an extreme-right, authoritarian Flemish-nationalistist party1940-1944: World War II – VNV and other Flemish-nationalist groups collaborate with the German occupying regime1961: breakthrough of the People´s Union (Volksunie), a new, pluralistic Flemish-nationalist party

1968-78: break-up of the national political parties into Dutch-language and francophone parties

1978: birth of the Flemish Bloc (Vlaams Blok), a new, extreme-right anti-Belgian party