Peripheral Municipalities React to Federal Measures: Concerns Over Security and Personnel Shortage

2023-10-22 18:05:00

In the 2019 elections, Vincent Van Quickenborne was elected to the Chamber on the Open VLD list in West Flanders. After joining the Vivaldi government, Jasper Pillen resumed his seat in the hemicycle.

Peripheral municipalities react to federal measures

“The new federal security measures are the result of a struggle for political survival,” Vooruit Mayor of Vilvoorde, Hans Bonte, declared on Sunday in reaction to the measures announced the day before by the De Croo government.

The mayor of Vilvoorde and president of the Toekomstforum (editor’s note: forum of the future) Halle-Vilvoorde, a security cooperation between the 33 peripheral municipalities of Brussels, fears that these measures will lead to an exodus from the periphery to occupy Brussels posts to be provided to the public prosecutor’s office, the PJ and the railway police.

Mr. Bonte called for the reinstatement of the Federal Canal Plan which was launched in the aftermath of the 2016 attacks.

In a critical note, Hans Bonte says he is convinced that structural solutions to the security problem in Brussels and Belgium have not been sought effectively.

“The measures announced will be of no use, no one wants to work in the mess that is this Brussels prosecutor’s office which has become bloodless”

According to him, it is not enough to strengthen the ranks of the public prosecutor’s office and the police in Brussels. Outside the city too, the police are understaffed at all levels. Mr. Bonte fears that recruitment in Brussels will worsen the shortage of personnel in surrounding municipalities and police zones.

“The essential problem, the Kafkaesque procedure for selecting and recruiting new police officers, remains unsolved for all municipalities,” he believes.

He insists on a unified Brussels police zone to combat “administrative chaos” and ensure a more efficient flow of information between federal information services and the local level.

“Until today, neither local administrations nor local police zones receive an overview of people who have been ordered to leave the territory and who have been subject to administrative detention. local services are supposed to enforce the law,” Mr. Bonte said.

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