2023-09-07 19:49:00
Has Sophie Dutordoir finally been heard? In mid-August, the CEO of SNCB wrote a letter to the federal, regional and municipal authorities describing “the dramatic situation at the Gare du Midi”.
This Thursday, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Open VLD), Brussels Minister-President Rudi Vervoort (PS), Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden (CD&V), Mobility Minister Georges Gilkinet (Écolo), in collaboration with the municipalities of Saint-Gilles and Anderlecht, presented their action plan.
On the menu, 22 actions intended to improve cleanliness and safety in the short term around the largest station in the country (160,000 passengers per day).
The most significant measure: a police station will be installed between the walls of the station. This request came from the municipalities, the SNCB and the Brussels Region, where some denounced the disinvestment of the federal level in Brussels. The presence of the police station must increase the police presence on the spot. And strengthen the fight once morest the criminal phenomena that proliferate there, in particular drug trafficking and pickpocketing.
No budget, no deadline…
The initiative must be greeted with caution, 9 months before the elections…
The authorities have yet to meet once more to determine the precise location where the police station will be erected. The date of implementation of the project is not yet defined, nor its total budget. The political will to be long-term will be decisive, especially when the news shifts to other issues…
Among the twenty other measures announced is the ban on the consumption of alcohol in the station. The authorities also plan to increase the number of patrols and police presence on the ground. The plan also provides for increased video surveillance in and around the station. Access to certain platforms will also be subject to controls. Reinforcement of cleaning around the notoriously messy station has also been announced, as well as improved lighting. We should also mention the installation of a social office and a reception center for people who are victims of addiction.
“The situation is dramatic at the Gare du Midi”: here are the demands of the SNCB
These decisions are the consequence of the decision of the Prime Minister who, on August 25, took it upon himself to bring together the various partners and levels of power concerned by this station.
The precarious security situation, as well as the general state of the station, has been known for years.
But the situation has, according to the authorities, really deteriorated in recent months. “We have a layer of problems at the Gare du Midi. There was already homelessness, but it is now overtaken by other problems, and in particular the use of narcotics and synthetic drugs. We have a resurgence of facts related to these practices, summarizes Rudi Vervoort (PS), Minister-President of Brussels. We are very satisfied with the initiative. If this plan succeeds here, we can reproduce it elsewhere, for example at the Gare du Nord and in certain metro stations.
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Bringing everyone together allowed for a global and coordinated approach. And not only via a spectacular police operation which was necessary, but will not solve all the problems.”
”It was necessary to tackle the question of the quality of reception in the station. Too often, we pass the buck in Belgian politics. Bringing everyone together allowed for a global and coordinated approach. And not only via a spectacular police operation which was necessary, but will not solve all the problems”, underlined Georges Gilkinet (Ecolo), federal minister in charge of the SNCB, pinning without quoting his colleague Annelies Verlinden ( CD&V), Federal Minister of the Interior
Obviously, these punching actions carried out by the police hardly convinced, among the greens, nor moreover within the left, where we denounced show operations without long-term effect, which would have especially as a consequence of moving problematic people to other stations.
Undocumented migrants, the blind spot of the plan
The plan, announced at the press conference, additionally has a major blind spot. None of the participants mentioned the issue of undocumented migrants.
However, of the sixty people arrested during the first police operation at the Gare du Midi, the overwhelming majority were illegal residents in Belgium.
The subject, it is true, risked angering the participants of the press conference. Nicole de Moor (CD&V), Secretary of State for Migration, announced last week the suspension of the reception of single men. The decision, backed by Alexander De Croo, sparked protests from environmentalists and socialists.
For Alain Maron (Ecolo), Brussels Minister for the Environment who spoke in L’Écho, there is no doubt: insecurity at the Gare du Midi and Gare du Nord is correlated with “the lack of – support by Fedasil of an increasingly large public in addition to the 50,000 to 100,000 undocumented migrants present in the capital”.
Earlier, Rudi Vervoort had demanded from the Federal government “a national plan for the distribution of migrants”, while Brussels bears most of the effort.
“We did indeed address this subject in the meeting this Thursday morning, while Nicole De Moor was present, specifies Jean Spinette (PS), mayor of Saint-Gilles. Nicole De Moor pointed out that she only took care of the reception of asylum seekers. It’s special… At the Gare du Midi, we are not confronted with homelessness in the strict sense, but with a reception crisis, with wandering people who are exploited by dealers.”
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