And yet my nationality request was rejected. Or rather: declared inadmissible. The reason? I have not formally proven that I speak one of the national languages.
Yes, you read that right. Being a French -speaking, a graduate of a Belgian French -speaking university, active here for years, is not enough. It would have taken an official linguistic certificate – it doesn’t matter that I practice this daily language in my work, in my home, in my life. My diploma? Not enough. My tax file? Off subject. My life? Maybe too alive to enter their boxes.
A system without common sense
In Liège, as elsewhere, there are five ways to obtain Belgian nationality. I could have asked for it because my wife is Belgian. Or because my daughter is Belgian. But I was advised – naively? carefully? – to go through social and economic integration. A way to show my contribution to society, to prevent us from thinking that I “married for papers”.
My diploma? Not enough. My tax file? Off subject. My life? Maybe too alive to enter their boxes.
I followed this advice. Badly took it. Because this system does not allow you to combine the criteria. It is a door at a time. And if you push the bad, even with a solid backrest, you are slamming in the nose.
No dialogue, no call, no additional request. Just a dry mention in the national register.
Almost an independent in eight installed in Belgium does not have Belgian nationality
To access this simple meeting, I first had to pay 150 euros. A non -refundable sum, for a service that has not even led to a background assessment. The money is cashed, the answer is shipped, the story is closed.
And me, like others, I remain a foreigner on paper in a country where I have already built everything.
It is not a tragedy – it’s a farce.
I am not to complain. I have a family, a work, a stable life. But this experience leaves a bitter taste. Because it reveals something wider: a system that produces administrative exclusion, even in the face of irreproachable routes.
Bureaucratic labyrinth
My case is not unique. Many foreign residents, sometimes better integrated than a native, collide with the same bureaucratic labyrinth. At a time when Europe is debating migration and integration, wouldn’t it be time to reconcile common sense and procedures?
We claim to encourage integration, but we penalize those who are already fully integrated. We are talking about cohesion, but we create mistrust. We ask for evidence, but we refuse to see the evidence.
I am not in a hurry to repeat a request. I will continue to live here, in the country I have chosen, with the woman and the child I love, in a language that I master a little too naturally for the Belgian administration.
But I will remain, for the moment, a de facto citizen without official recognition.
Because one day, I thought that belonging to a nation was built by commitment. Not by a stamp.
