Five Border Arrondissements around Brussels

	population 1970	number of councilmen	number of municipalities	total hectare
Brussels Conurbation	1.071.094	83	19	16.179
Asse Border Arrondissement	106.949	27	25	18.934
Halle Border Arrondissement	102.575	27	22	18.078
Tervuren Border Arrondissement	47.787	19	11	15.259
Vilvoorde Border Arrondissement	97.787	27	15	13.468
Zaventem Border Arrondissement	63.832	23	13	8.584

The Border arrondissements were therefore cooperative partnerships between municipalities grouped around a core municipality. The following main technical powers belonged to these new, supracommunal governing bodies: the pick-up and processing of trash, the paid transport of persons, the fire brigade and urgent medical care. When the municipalities involved wished this for themselves, they could also arrange the following issues: airports, public markets, slaughterhouses, public car parks, tourism, camping, cremation and catacombs, establishment of services for technical aid for the municipalities and any other powers that were allocated to them by another government. More importantly was that the law on the conurbations and arrondissements also allowed for the possibility to transfer powers from the municipalities concerning the acceptance of general construction plans, advice concerning special construction plans, advice on district plans, and construction and subdivision ordinances to the arrondissement level. Like an emerald belt, the Border arrondissements around Brussels could thus participate in determining the spatial planning of the region. Even though the Border arrondissements were abandoned in the 1970s, their influence to this day is of extreme importance. After all, they form the foundation upon which many of the current intercommunal corporations have organised themselves, and furthermore, the construction ordinances of the previous Border arrondissement, limiting the number of floors to four, is still applicable in the municipalities that are within the region of the former Halle Border arrondissement.

The Border arrondissements each have a directly elected council and an implementing tribunal. On 21 November 1971, the voters from the municipalities concerned were called together for the first (and only) election in the Border arrondissements. That same day, elections were held in the Brussels municipalities for the Conurbation Council. Because the elections were organised per municipality, the fear existed that the results, especially in Brussels and the facilities municipalities, would be interpreted as a sort of language count. In general, the results were a confirmation of the tendencies that appeared in the parliament elections of 7 November 1971; the Front démocratique des Francophones (FDF) and the Volksunie (VU) continued to pull votes away from the traditional parties in Brussels and the Border, respectively. In terms of language politics, the Border arrondissements were a Flemish counterweight to the radical French voice coming from the Brussels electorate. In the Border, the CVP lists received the most votes, but the VU lists also achieved equally strong results, as can be seen in the graph below. Proportionally, the CVP practically scored the same in the five arrondissements, but with results between 29 and 34% of the votes. The weight of the other political formations varied more strongly depending on the arrondissement. The arrondissements of Zaventem, Tervuren and Asse gave VU percentages of 21 and 23%. The French lists appeared in the Border under the name Liberté et Démocratie. They scored 21% of the votes in the Zaventem arrondissement.

With 43 of the 123 seats, the CVP was the strongest formation, but the biggest surprise was the Volksunie, which, with 23 seats, became the second largest party. The progress of the Volksunie with regard to the local elections of 1970 was striking in practically all the Border arrondissements. This Flemish nationalist party was already strongly rooted in a few of the municipalities, including Schepdaal, where Jef Valkeniers was at the helm of the division. The VU’s win was only limited in the Halle arrondissement due to competition with the strong Flemish CVP party leader, Renaat Van Elslande. Flemish voters responded to the francophone parties’ campaigns by voting for VU, which was, according to commentators, especially disadvantageous for the Red Lions (Flemish BSP) at the time. The Flemish socialists claimed third place in all the Border arrondissements together with 18 seats, coming in just before the FDF and Liberal lists (17 seats each). Moreover, the French liberals gained 4 seats in the Border arrondissement councils, and the PSC gained 1 seat.