Interior minister: Brussels police merger plan to be finalised by summer
A plan to merge the six Brussels police zones will be finalised before the summer, Interior minister Bernard Quintin said on Monday.
“I will present this plan to the government in the coming weeks. My aim is for it to be finalised before the summer, which will give me the rest of the legislature to do some fine tuning,” he told media outlets.
The plan is part of the new federal government's coalition agreement and is intended to tackle growing drug-related violence in the capital.
“The aim is not to concentrate all the resources on certain areas and abandon the rest,” Quintin said, adding that his sole concern was efficiency. “We need to be close to the ground to know what is happening in every commune, in every street. 75 per cent of the resources will remain for community policing.”
In La Libre Belgique, he reiterated his intention to tackle the organisations involved in drug trafficking, with a new plan targeting narcotics. He stressed that Belgium was “not a narco-state” but faces “an increase in the sophistication, internationalisation and violence of these drug traffickers”.
“All this trafficking is underground and what happens underground ends up being connected. Drug trafficking is linked to arms trafficking and human trafficking, with the use of UFMs [unaccompanied foreign minors] as cannon fodder,” he said, calling for a global approach to tackle the issues.
In addition, the federal judicial police in Brussels and Antwerp must be strengthened with a view to investigating drug crime.
Interior Bernard Quintin at a press conference to present the annual report of the Federal Police, Brussels, 24 February 2025 © BELGA PHOTO ERIC LALMAND
Related news
