[jack_arleth]

Though I'm willing to agree with this as a general idea, I would be cautious to state it as a fact.

I've encountered many Flemish Belgians who openly admit they can understand English but cannot speak it well. A member of my close familiy who works in aviation occasionally rants about "having to do everything in English", a position that I cannot begin to understand. Whereas I've worked for a Flemish Belgian company that also had Walloon Belgian customers who communicated not stubbornly in French (as the stereotype would suggest) but in professional English.

I believe that the language learning is affected by the generations. There has been a disregard, acceptance and now (what I believe) a new disregard of foreign languages in Flanders. Though I do not have any numbers to back that up. That said the news recently reported an all-time low for Flemish Belgian students with regard to reading and sciences (https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2019/12/03/_dutch-is-the-key-to...). So there might be a correlation between the two subjects.

It would be very interesting to have data on this subject as Belgium indeed is a great place to study this phenomenon.