text: In the hypothetical scenario of a separation of Belgium, the future status of Brussels is unknown. It might become an EU member state, or jointly run by the nations formed from Belgium and the EU itself. The possible status of Brussels as a "city state" has also been suggested by Charles Picqué, who sees a tax on the EU institutions as a way of enriching the city. However, the Belgian issue has very little discussion within the EU bodies.
  The boundaries of the Brussels-Capital Region were determined from the 1947 language census' data. This was the last time that some municipalities were legally converted from monolingual Dutch-speaking into bilingual municipalities, joined with the Brussels agglomeration. The suggestive nature of the questions led to massive protests in Flanders (especially around Brussels), causing it to be unlikely to ever hold a language-related census again in Belgium. The result is that the Brussels Region is now a lot smaller than the French-speaking influence around the capital, and that there is very little space left in Brussels for important expansions of its infrastructure. Enlarging the territory of Brussels could potentially give it around 1.5 million inhabitants, an airport, a bigger forest, and bring the Brussels Ring onto its territory. A large and independent status may also help Brussels in its claim as the capital of the EU.