PRESS RELEASE: MORE INTERNATIONAL BRUSSELERS SIGN UP TO VOTE

PUBLISHED ON 20/08/2024

Belgium's Federal Public Service (FPS) for Home Affairs has published the final tally of registrations for the electoral roll of October's municipal elections follow the closure of the lists on 31 July. As a reminder, non-Belgians have the right to vote at municipal level too: EU nationals as soon as they arrive and non-EU nationals after 5 years' residence. However, these international Brusselers need to sign up actively with their municipality.

Over the last few months, various public and civil society actors (some of them subsidised by the Brussels-Capital Region) have been running an awareness-raising campaign to inform these residents of their rights and encourage them to sign up.

We now have the final statistics, and they reveal some interesting developments:

The total number of non-Belgian people who signed up in the Brussels Region exceeds 50,000 for the first time.
The sign-up rate for EU nationals increased from 16.75% in 2018 to 17.09% in 2024.
5 municipalities are above a rate of 20% for EU nationals (Watermael-Boitsfort, Saint-Gilles, Woluwe Saint-Pierre, Forest, Saint-Josse).
The registration rate for non-EU nationals fell from 19.27% in 2018 to 13.25% in 2024.
The combined rate decreased slightly from 17% to 16.2%.
International Brusselers now make up 7.7% of registered voters, and more than one in ten in four municipalities (Saint-Gilles, Ixelles, Saint-Josse and Etterbeek).
In 2018, non-EU nationals had a much higher sign-up rate than EU nationals, but by 2024 the situation had completely reversed.

Alain Hutchinson, Brussels Commissioner for Europe and International Organisations:

“These figures are a great success for the public outreach campaign, given that the overall registration rate was only 12% in May. I'm pleased to see that thousands of International Brusselers have signed up in just a few months, and that more of them than ever will be casting their votes at the ballot box in October. Everyone who took part in this campaign can congratulate themselves on its impact, and I would like to thank the municipalities that launched initiatives in their districts.”

"However, we must also recognise the shortcomings: an overall registration rate that is slightly down and a significant drop among non-EU nationals. With a growing and increasingly cosmopolitan population, the Brussels Region and its municipalities need to look at these results and draw the appropriate conclusions. The electoral participation of non-Belgians is no longer a secondary issue, but a fundamental challenge for our local democracy. We need a clear framework, a long-term strategy and budgets that match our ambitions.”

The contribution of commissioner.brussels and the Expat Welcome Desk

Neutral and credible information in English, in particular with this article and these FAQs.
Producing an outreach toolkit with materials in English: graphic, a postcard, a poster and QR codes.
Some events of our own (e.g. a webinar on 28 May).
Participating in the events of other stakeholders as an expert speaker on registration, proxy voting, electoral lists, etc. (This includes information sessions within the EU institutions.)
Personalised support from the Expat Welcome Desk for any individual question.
Liaison between public authorities and civil society players selected in the call for projects (e.g. via workshops or by relaying technical questions to the Belgian Interior Ministry).

THE BRUSSELS COMMISSIONER FOR EUROPE AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS

The Brussels Commissioner for Europe and International Organisations (commissioner.brussels) has a unique mission in the capital of Europe. We act as a go-between linking regional authorities with the international organisations based here. We also support International Brusselers in settling down through our Expat Welcome Desk. This diverse mandate makes us a centre of expertise on the issues raised by Brussels’ special role as a hub of international governance.