Brussels Prime Minister Rudi Vervoort (Francophone socialist PS) says the keys to the capital’s security policy lie with the federal government and other federal authorities. Mr Vervoort was speaking during a meeting of the Brussels Regional Parliament's Home Affairs Committee, which was convened in connection with this summer's shootings in the Brussels municipalities of Anderlecht and Sint-Jans-Molenbeek.
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Brussels shootings: Brussels PM hopes federal politicians can sort it
Colin Clapson
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According to Vervoort, Brussels can only tackle the challenges of organised crime and drug-related violence if additional resources and personnel are provided ‘at all levels’ – and in particular at federal level.
MBPs (Members of the Brussels Parliament) were left somewhat unsatisfied after the PM's remarks. ‘We received virtually no answers,’ said Mathias Vanden Borre (Flemish nationalist N-VA). ‘What measures are you taking? I heard little about that.’
‘We received very few answers,’ Benjamin Dalle (Flemish Christian democrat CD&V) confided to the Belga press agency. ‘We need to look at what the Brussels region itself can do.’
A change of tack
Last year, Vervoort announced that he would take on the coordination of the fight against drug trafficking. ‘This strategy comes at the request of everyone who is active in the field,’ he said at the time. ‘The aim is to develop a regional approach based on a precisely defined management structure in which everyone cooperates.’
Today, he admits that three of the six Brussels police zones are not structurally involved in the regional video platform of safe.brussels. It is through safe.brussels that regional security policy is coordinated. ‘We need to look at what the Brussels region itself can do,’ insists Benjamin Dalle. ‘We propose that the Brussels government concludes an agreement with the three police zones that are not yet cooperating in an organised way with the regional video platform to do so in future.’
In recent hours, there has been yet another shooting in Brussels. This time in the borough of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek. Fortunately, nobody was injured in the incident that happened around 4AM. Police are investigating in a bid to identify the culprits.