News

Walloon and Brussels governments continue to block trade agreements

9 February 2023

An international trade agreement must be approved by all of the Belgian parliaments before it can be ratified. This happens smoothly in Flanders, while parliaments in Wallonia and Brussels often put on the brakes. The Flemish Parliament wants to make progress and is urging rapid ratification in the …

One-third of detainees have no right of residence: “Build a prison in Kosovo”

7 February 2023

Every month in 2022, 505 prisoners without a right of residence in Belgium stayed in the Brussels prisons of Haren, Sint-Gillis and Vorst. That is according to figures requested by MP Tomas Roggeman. Returning these criminal illegal immigrants is particularly difficult. “Illegal detainees should …

NATO standard of 2% still nowhere in sight: “Promised defence spending decreasing”

6 February 2023

On the proposal of Defence Minister Dedonder (PS party), the Council of Ministers approved the annual Strategic Level Report on defence efforts within the framework of NATO commitments. This shows that Belgium is moving further away from compliance with the NATO standard. “Less than a year after …

Assita Kanko: “Europe must build a wall”

5 February 2023

Our country is groaning under a new asylum crisis. We are the drain of the European pool. The situation in the Paleizenstraat, where hundreds of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are crammed together, is becoming more dire by the day. “We must tackle the problem at its source. Europe must build …

The EU’s appetite for borrowing is a slippery slope

3 February 2023

"Europe’s new strategy of borrowing money on the capital markets risks transforming the bloc into a debt factory", says Johan Van Overtveldt, chair of the Committee on Budgets and the Recovery and Resilience Facility Working Group in the European Parliament in an opinion piece on politico.eu. The …

Geert Bourgeois on the European “Industrial Green Deal”: “A good thing, but Europe must not become protectionist”

2 February 2023

The European Commission proposes the Green Deal Industrial Plan in response to the American Inflation Reduction Act. That plan includes provision for more flexible rules on state aid, in response to the protectionist plans of the US. Geert Bourgeois, head of the European N-VA group delegation, is …

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