Authors: Inès Gentil & Maria Giovanna Sessa, EU DisinfoLab
Reviewers: Trisha Meyer, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB); Victor Wiard, UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles
Updated on 07/11/2024
Introduction
- Belgium can be seen as a particular example of a country where it is difficult to report on disinformation, because the federal country is divided by regional and linguistic borders. Belgium has three official languages (Dutch, French, and German) and three regions (Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels-Capital), which partially overlap.
- On the one hand, this double fragmentation, combined with separated institutions (including public media), is the source of many political and community tensions within the country. Consequently, local communities’ information ecosystems are very connected to neighbouring countries such as France for the French speaking part of the country, and the Netherlands for Flanders.
- Belgium has also a very high concentration of journalists with more than 5.000 registered professional journalists (French-speaking or Flemish-speaking) as well as 2.000 European journalists based in or often coming to Brussels. Specifically, there are officially around 730 accredited journalists (EU correspondents) permanently based in Brussels.
- On the other hand, Brussels is the home of the European Commission and hosts the seats of the European Parliament, the European Council, and the NATO headquarters. This puts Belgium as an influence target for foreign interference as the capital is the beating heart of European regulation.
- Belgian law does not yet specifically regulate mis- and disinformation as the individual behaviour of sharing fake news. Significant gaps remain, such as current regulations on paid influence, including political advertisements and the role of influencers.
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Supported by:
The V1 of this factsheet was funded by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.
This factsheet has benefitted from the support of the EU project EDMO BELUX II that has received funding from the European Union under Grant Agreement number 101158785. The contents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union.
The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of EU DisinfoLab. This factsheet does not represent an endorsement by EU DisinfoLab of any organisation.
