In October, some EU countries, led by Italy, pushed to normalize ties with Syria in order to facilitate the deportation of migrants. Assad, who held power for 25 years until fleeing to Moscow with his family, has been accused of torture and of using chemical weapons on his own people. With the ouster of Assad, … Read more
On Sunday, Romanians vote in crucial parliamentary elections, with polls showing hard-right parties on track to bag a third of the ballots, riding on the momentum created by Georgescu who surged in the polls out of nowhere last Sunday to secure a shock win. The stakes are high. An outright victory for the far-right presidential … Read more
Speaking Dutch is central to this, van den Broeck believes. “Dutch is part of our DNA” as Flemish people, he said. Migration drives shifts “Brussels has always been a multilingual city because it’s centered at the border between the Roman- and the German-speaking territories,” explained VUB researcher Saeys. Waves of migration after World War II … Read more
The Belgian probe, which was officially opened on Wednesday, comes after an investigation by Palestinian journalist and Bellingcat contributor Younis Tirawi, who accused the Refaim sniper unit of “brutal execution of unarmed civilians.” Tirawi said he received information from an American soldier in a lead position in the unit, who provided evidence that the unit … Read more
The negotiators will present the coalition agreement to their parties in the coming days. “We have finally reached an agreement for a new, better and more social Flanders government, with a lot of good news in our education, in health, in affordable living,” said Conner Rousseau, leader of Vooruit, on Instagram. One day earlier, on … Read more
The European Court of Human Rights referred the case in which two women complained about the ban on wearing the burkini in a municipal swimming pool in Antwerp back to Belgium. The drawn-out court case dates back to 2017, when the two women were not allowed to enter the pool in their burkinis, a full-body … Read more
Belgium has nominated Lahbib as its pick for Ursula von der Leyen’s new European Commission. She is known for her tough stance on Budapest: During Belgium’s EU presidency, for example, Lahbib urged EU governments to consider moving forward with a procedure to strip Hungary — which took over the presidency in July — of its … Read more
“The name has not yet been decided, but I can tell you that Belgium will be able to submit a name within the deadline,” Georges-Louis Bouchez, the leader of the Reformist Movement (the French-speaking liberal party that’s likely to pick the commissioner), had said on Thursday. But as August ended, that pick had not been … Read more
David Clarinval, the coordinator in the government formation talks for the Reformist Movement (MR) — which is Reynders’ party — said on Tuesday morning that Reynders has done “an excellent job” as commissioner. “You know, in soccer, they say ‘you don’t change a winning team,’” Clarinval told Belgian radio — the closest hint yet that … Read more
Time is ticking for the country to form a government as it faces several EU deadlines: it must nominate an EU commissioner by the end of August and present a multi-annual plan to shrink its budget deficit to the European Commission by Sept. 20. On Thursday, talks to form a center-right cabinet led by Flemish … Read more
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