Belgium records 150 suspected drone alerts at sensitive locations

Pin this issue, the French-speaking liberals of the Reformation Movement (MR), who are part of the Belgian government coalition, today asked the Prime Minister, Flemish nationalist Bart De Wever, to call “without delay” a meeting of the National Security Council to analyze the level of the threat and adopt measures.

“Belgium cannot think that it is safe. As the headquarters of the European institutions and NATO, our country is home to transport, energy, digital and logistics infrastructures which are essential at European level. This strategic position requires enhanced surveillance and preparedness to match the risks,” the MR said in a statement.

The request of the French-speaking liberals arises in a context of growing concern in the European Union (EU) with possible actions of espionage, sabotage, interference or destabilisation.

“Europe is faced with a worrying intensification of hybrid threats,” added the MR, on the same day that RTBF revealed new details about a series of night drone overflights this summer near Charleroi airport south of Brussels.

Some of these devices have been sighted near military aviation-related facilities that participate in strategic programmes, according to a French-speaking public television investigation.

The incidents led to the mobilisation of an unusual device involving the Federal Police and the Army, equipped with detection and interception systems, including a drone inhibitor and a remotely piloted aircraft intended for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, according to the television station.

Despite the means used, security forces were unable to neutralize any device or identify its pilots, so it is difficult to find the origin of the flights.

The Federal Attorney's Office, which currently has 26 drone-related investigations open, is also investigating these episodes.

Belgium — headquarters of Euroclear, where some EUR 185 billion remain blocked in assets of the Russian Central Bank — has not officially imposed these flights on any State, but they have, on different occasions, forced the temporary interruption of air traffic at Brussels and Charleroi airports.

However, Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken and the Chief of Armed Forces, General Frederik Vansina, had already publicly suggested, after similar previous episodes, that it could be destabilising operations carried out at the behest of Russia.