Europe in Brussels part 15: Our Dutch neighbours

One of the largest expat groups living in Brussels, the Dutch, celebrate their national holiday on 27 April.

Since 2013 the holiday has been called King’s Day (Koningsdag), and celebrates King Willem-Alexander’s birthday. It used to be celebrated on 30 April and was known as Queen’s Day when King Willem-Alexander’s mother Queen Beatrix held the throne.

“It’s the big national holiday where people go out and party,” says Hans Hack, a Dutch expat in Brussels and senior managing director at FTI Consulting. “Especially the night before, everyone puts on an orange shirt and goes outside in the street and drinks beer. It’s just a really nice holiday, that one I miss a bit here.”

Demographic statistics from the Belgian Directorate-General Statistics and Economic Information in 2016 puts the number of Dutch nationals in Belgium at 140,000 - making it the third largest expat nationality in the country (behind the French and Italians).

With such a large expat population and Dutch being one of Belgium’s official languages, you might expect that it is a rather comfortable place for Dutch nationals to live. However, Hack says that you really can’t get by in Brussels by only speaking Dutch, you must know French or English.

"When I moved to Brussels, I never realised how Dutch I was until I worked in an international environment," he says.

For a slice of Dutch culture in Brussels, try Flemish-Dutch House deBuren ("the neighbours") - a platform for debate about culture, science, politics and society in the Low Countries.

The Dutch Association in Brussels has been a meeting place for Dutch expats since 1906. The group is involved in organising a commemorative ceremony at the British War Cemetery in Evere on 4 May in memory of Dutch soldiers and civilians killed by terror and war.