2023-08-31 10:25:00
The Brussels Government met this Thursday to take stock “on the coordination of actions aimed at restoring security and tranquility at the Gare du Midi, and on the general situation of stations and metro stations in the Brussels-Capital Region .”
Implicitly, the members of the Brussels Executive were quite unhappy with the recurrent and recent questioning of the Region by the Federal government on the file of security problems in stations, metros and the surrounding neighborhoods “while we, the Region, municipalities, police zones, let us mobilize our resources and that the Federal government disinvests and resigns from its missions”, specifies a member of the Brussels government.
In a press release, the Minister-President Rudi Vervoort (PS) said that he was fully in line with the work of coordination of all the competences, which began recently.
The Brussels government says, however, with reference to the recent measures announced by the Secretary of State for Migration Nicole De Moor, that it is “particularly concerned that at the very moment when this work is being carried out, the announcement is made of the end of the reception of single male asylum seekers by Fedasil. This decision, if implemented, would inevitably have serious consequences for Brussels”, specifying that “the vast majority of these people are indeed concentrated in Brussels” where the institutions registering asylum applications are located.
“A national distribution plan”
The government asks that the announcement “of the decision not to welcome single male asylum seekers not be applied”. For Rudi Vervoort and his executive, the effort must be distributed between the Regions. He asks “that everything be done to ensure that all asylum seekers receive material assistance, in accordance with Belgium’s international obligations and Belgian and European law, and this by resorting to national solidarity, if necessary by implementation of a national distribution plan.”
Nicole de Moor temporarily suspends the reception of single male asylum seekers: “What a painful failure!”
“The Brussels Government has constantly drawn the attention of the federal authorities to this issue”
The main responsibility for the situation in Brussels stations, according to the Brussels government, does not essentially lie with the Brussels-Capital Region. “The Government must note that for several years, the socio-sanitary situation and the safety of several neighborhoods have been deteriorating due to factors over which the Region has little control, in particular drug trafficking and crime which accompanies, as well as the presence of a large number of homeless people, asylum seekers or without a residence permit.” They specify that “the Brussels Government has never ceased to draw the attention of the federal authorities to this question.”
The Brussels Government adds that it “has never ceased to draw the attention of the federal authorities to this question.”
He recalls in particular his letter of September 2021, devoted to the “difficulties posed by the failure to take into account the situation of people without a residence permit on the territory of the Brussels Region”, addressed to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Interior, and to the Secretary of State for the reception of asylum seekers.
The Brussels Government notes that two years later, the observations made by this letter “have worsened and that the requests for action have had no effect, apart from the agreement between Fedasil and the Region for the coverage of 1,500 reception places that Brussels had already provided.”
The Regional Government of Brussels-Capital says that it is committed “with voluntarism and loyalty to the design of the coordination plan for the safety and viability of the Gare du Midi and asks the Federal Government “that the solutions and cooperation developed in this context can be transposed to the Gare du Nord and metro stations and their surroundings affected by similar situations.”
He asks “in particular, that a solution be found ensuring a real police presence in metro stations, which the insufficient staff of the Railway Police (SPC) does not allow to ensure”.
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