Can Boris Dilliès’ Dutch immersion course rebuild trust in bilingual Brussels?

Brussels Minister-President Boris Dilliès

The course turns a promise made at the beginning of Dilliès’ premiership into a particularly visible test. When he unexpectedly took office in February, after MR president Georges-Louis Bouchez called him only hours before his swearing-in, Dilliès struggled to answer Dutch-language questions about his plans. His hesitant response — “we zullen zien”, or “we will see” — quickly became shorthand for doubts about whether the new head of government could represent Dutch-speaking Brussels residents.

Dilliès did not dispute the substance of that criticism. In an interview with BRUZZ in March, the former mayor of Uccle said his Dutch was not good and acknowledged that improving it was a duty. He explained that he had once used the language while working for publisher Wolters Kluwer but had rarely spoken it during roughly two decades in municipal politics. More recently, he told BRUZZ that he was taking lessons, listening to Dutch-language political podcasts and making progress, though he did not yet feel comfortable enough to conduct political business freely in Dutch.

His cabinet says the Spa programme will be provided by language-training organisation Ceran. According to BRUZZ, the format combines formal instruction with Dutch-language meals and activities, creating an immersion environment beyond the classroom. Spokesperson Christophe Degreef said the cabinet preferred to limit publicity so that Dilliès could study in peace. No public information has been provided about the cost, the assessment method or the level he is expected to attain.

That absence of a declared benchmark matters because the dispute has never been only about pronunciation. Brussels-Capital is constitutionally a bilingual Dutch-French region, and its institutions are designed around protections for both linguistic groups. The federal government’s official information service states that the 89-member Brussels Parliament is elected for five years, while the regional government includes a minister-president and four ministers divided equally between the French- and Dutch-language groups. The rules secure representation inside the executive, but they do not appear to impose an individual bilingualism test on its minister-president.

The political expectation is nevertheless substantial. Dilliès chairs the regional Council of Ministers and is responsible for maintaining cohesion within a seven-party coalition, according to the Brussels government’s official profile. He also holds regional portfolios including external relations, foreign trade, tourism, prevention and security, and bicultural matters of regional interest. In those roles, Dutch is not an optional cultural ornament: it affects contact with parliamentarians, journalists, institutions and residents in a region whose public identity rests on formal access in both languages.

The issue belongs principally to Brussels regional politics, not to the federal government. The Brussels Region handles territorial matters such as employment, housing, transport, economic policy and spatial planning, while the communities oversee language-linked fields including education and culture. Federal Defence Minister Theo Francken therefore has no administrative authority over Dilliès’ language training. His intervention was political: the N-VA minister said Dilliès should find another job if he was unwilling to learn Dutch. Dilliès’ decision to pursue lessons answers the charge about willingness, but not yet the question of practical competence.

There are competing ways to read the controversy. Flemish politicians and Dutch-language media have generally treated functional Dutch as a basic condition of legitimacy for the leader of bilingual Brussels. A BRUZZ editorial argued in February that Dilliès would have to demonstrate that he could govern for Dutch speakers as well as French speakers, recalling that predecessors Charles Picqué and Rudi Vervoort had used Dutch more effectively.

A second frame places the episode within Brussels’ multilingual reality. Laurent Hublet, the Les Engagés minister serving in the same regional government, told BRUZZ that bilingualism remains important in the historically bilingual capital, while also noting that many residents now have neither Dutch nor French as their mother tongue. From that perspective, institutional bilingualism remains indispensable even as day-to-day Brussels life involves many more languages. The two positions are not mutually exclusive: multilingualism can broaden the city’s identity without removing the government’s obligations towards its two official language communities.

The timing adds weight to what might otherwise look like a summer human-interest story. Dilliès leads a government formed only in February 2026, after 613 days of political deadlock following the June 2024 regional election. His coalition must establish authority during the remainder of the 2024-2029 legislative term while managing difficult regional files. Language competence will not resolve disagreements over budgets, mobility, security or institutional reform, but it can influence whether explanations and compromises are heard as credible across the coalition’s linguistic divide.

The immersion course should therefore be judged as a beginning rather than a political conclusion. The first meaningful indicators will come when Dilliès next answers unscripted Dutch-language questions, debates in the Brussels Parliament and communicates regional decisions without relying heavily on prepared text or interpretation. His cabinet has not announced a proficiency target or follow-up timetable. What happens after Spa — sustained practice, public accountability and the ability to work across both language groups — will determine whether the course becomes more than a symbolic repair.