Brussels, 26/09/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 26 September, the European Commission announced that it was taking Belgium to the European Court of Justice for discrimination over access to jobs in local public services. The Belgian government's non-recognition of certificates attesting to language skills other than those awarded by SELOR (the official selection office) is judged contrary to the principle of the free movement of workers.
The division of skills in Belgium is rather atypical given that neither all the regions in the country nor all the communities have been criticised for such discrimination; but rather, a mixture of the two types of federal bodies. The Flemish government has already adopted measures to comply with European law and the Flemish Community is not directly targeted by this complaint. It is not the same thing for the French Community and the German-speaking Community. Discrimination of this kind is still in force in Brussels but this city is part of the bilingual Brussels-Capital region, which is in charge of language questions.
In its complaint, the Commission underlines Belgian provisions on the use of languages in the administrative field. An employer can obviously demand that candidates have a certain level of linguistic knowledge, but the latter should be allowed the opportunity of providing certification for them by way of proof obtained in other member states. Nonetheless, the SELOR certificate is the only one that is currently accepted, which contravenes the case law of the European Court of Justice (decision of 6 June 2000 in C-281/98), which had already tackled a similar problem in Italy. The competent bodies in Belgium had already begun to amend their provisions but the Commission considers that, “they are dragging their feet somewhat”, according to one European source. (JK/transl.fl)