After 20 years of waiting, the community is preparing a legal challenge to Belgium’s system for recognising religions and philosophical organisations Belgi…
After 20 years of waiting, the community is preparing a legal challenge to Belgium’s system for recognising religions and philosophical organisations
Belgium’s Buddhist community has given the federal government until 30 September to respond to its long-delayed request for official recognition. The possible legal challenge places renewed scrutiny on a system that grants significant public benefits to recognised communities but has already been found by the European Court of Human Rights to lack sufficient safeguards against arbitrary treatment.
The Belgian Buddhist Union applied for recognition in March 2006. On 15 July this year, it formally placed the federal government on notice, according to a statement published by the organisation.
Its president, Carlo Luyckx, argues that the 20-year delay has become discriminatory. The union says it will begin judicial proceedings if it does not receive a satisfactory response by the end of September. It has also raised the prospect of eventually taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights, although any application to Strasbourg would normally require available domestic remedies to be exhausted first.
Justice Minister Annelies Verlinden’s office has said that she intends to meet representatives of the Buddhist community. The government maintains that work is under way on a general legal framework covering the recognition of religions and non-confessional philosophical organisations.
A bill that reached Parliament and then lapsed
The Buddhist application had already advanced much further than a preliminary administrative request.
In March 2023, Belgium’s Council of Ministers approved draft legislation that would have recognised Buddhism as a non-confessional philosophical organisation and the Belgian Buddhist Union as its representative body. The proposed structure included a federal secretariat, local Buddhist communities and publicly remunerated Buddhist delegates.
A revised version was approved in December 2023 after opinions from the Council of State and the Data Protection Authority. The bill was submitted to the Chamber of Representatives on 22 January 2024.
It did not become law. The parliamentary record shows that the proposal lapsed when the Chamber was dissolved in May 2024.
The present coalition has opted to pursue a uniform recognition framework rather than immediately reviving the Buddhist bill. A common statutory process could make Belgium’s system more coherent. For the Buddhist community, however, it means another period of uncertainty after the government had already drafted and twice approved legislation addressing its application.
Recognition carries material consequences
Belgium currently recognises six religions at federal level: Roman Catholicism, Protestant-Evangelical Christianity, Anglicanism, Judaism, Islam and Orthodox Christianity. Organised secularism is separately recognised as a non-confessional philosophical organisation.
Buddhism and Hinduism remain outside the recognised system, although their representative organisations receive subsidies intended to support their institutional development.
The distinction is more than symbolic. Article 181 of the Belgian Constitution provides for the state to pay the salaries and pensions of ministers of recognised religions and delegates of recognised non-confessional organisations. Recognition can also affect local institutional structures, representation, religious assistance and tax treatment.
The classification sought by the Buddhist Union has itself generated debate. The organisation considers Buddhism a non-theistic philosophical tradition and therefore seeks recognition as a non-confessional organisation. Representatives of organised secularism have argued that its temples, rituals, monastic traditions and ceremonies place it within the category of religion.
Whatever classification lawmakers ultimately choose, the more immediate rights question concerns the availability of a transparent procedure capable of reaching a decision within a reasonable period.
Strasbourg’s warning to Belgium
That issue has already reached the European Court of Human Rights in a case involving nine Jehovah’s Witness congregations.
In April 2022, the Court unanimously found that Belgium had discriminated against the congregations after a Brussels rule restricted a property-tax exemption to buildings used by recognised religions. The decision found a violation of the prohibition of discrimination when read together with freedom of religion and protection of property.
As The European Times reported following the judgment, the Court identified a deeper problem in the federal recognition mechanism. Recognition could proceed only on the initiative of the justice minister and ultimately depended on legislation, while the applicable procedure and criteria were not established in law with sufficient guarantees of fairness and objectivity.
The Court described this arrangement as carrying an inherent risk of arbitrariness. It did not rule that every religious community has an automatic right to recognition, public financing or tax privileges. States retain considerable discretion over their systems of church-state relations.
Once public authorities attach important advantages to recognition, however, access to those advantages cannot depend on a discriminatory or insufficiently safeguarded process.
Implementation of the 2022 judgment remains under the supervision of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers. In December 2025, the Department for the Execution of Judgments discussed the case with Belgian authorities during a mission to Brussels, including the absence of regulated recognition procedures and criteria.
Equal treatment must extend beyond Buddhists
The recognition debate is not solely about Belgium’s Buddhist community. Any reformed procedure must be equally accessible to Hindus, Scientologists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Bahá’ís, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormons, and every other religious or belief community.
The OSCE/ODIHR-Venice Commission guidelines state that communities seeking legal personality should have a fair opportunity to obtain it and that the applicable criteria must be applied without discrimination. Access should be voluntary: the exercise of freedom of religion or belief cannot be made dependent on prior state permission.
Legal personality is not identical to Belgium’s more advantageous status as a recognised religion or philosophical organisation. It ordinarily enables a community to perform basic institutional acts such as holding property, operating bank accounts, employing staff and entering contracts. Belgian recognition can additionally open access to public salaries, pensions, institutional representation, local structures and certain tax advantages.
The OSCE standards do not oblige Belgium to fund every religious or belief community automatically. They do require access to the relevant legal status and any associated advantages to be governed by objective, transparent and non-discriminatory rules.
That principle must apply regardless of a community’s size, age, theology or public popularity. The state may establish proportionate legal requirements, but it should not favour historically established religions, make judgments about the legitimacy of unfamiliar beliefs or leave minority applications unresolved indefinitely.
A credible Belgian reform would therefore provide every religious or belief community with a defined application route, published non-discriminatory criteria, a decision within a reasonable period and access to independent review. Recognition may still depend on satisfying lawful conditions, but the opportunity to apply and receive a reasoned decision must belong to everyone equally.
