Category Archives: Belgium

Belgium v Italy: Euro 2020 quarter-final – live!

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A couple of beauties from Nicolo Barella and Lorenzo Insigne saw off Belgium’s golden generation

Jonathan Wilson was in Munich to witness this fine match in person. His report has just landed ... and here it is. Get clicking, people. Congratulations to Italy, commiserations to Belgium, and thanks to you all for reading this MBM. Hope to see you again tomorrow. Nighty night!

Related: Barella and Insigne break Belgium to send Italy through to semi-final

The one downer for Italy - and it’s a big one - is the loss to injury of the hamstrung Leonardo Spinazzola. The marauding left-back has been one of the sensations of the tournament, so entertaining to watch in full flight, and one of those nice late-blooming career stories to boot. His presence will be missed, though you’d still back these exciting Italians to see off unconvincing Spain at Wembley next week. But it’s tournament football, so, well, y’know.

Related: Leonardo Spinazzola: Italy’s frequent flyer down the left flank

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Belgian police hold man ‘99 or 100 years old’ over retirement home death

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Elderly man detained on suspicion of killing fellow resident in Destelbergen

Belgian authorities have detained an elderly man, reportedly 99 or 100 years old, on suspicion of killing a fellow resident of the retirement home where he lived, the Belga press agency has said.

No details of the fatal assault which took place on Monday were immediately available, but the Ghent prosecutor’s office confirmed in a statement that a resident of the home was in custody.

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Body discovered after search for Belgian far-right soldier

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Initial evidence indicates body found in woods is that of Jurgen Conings

Belgian police have said a body has been found in the search for a fugitive far-right soldier who was the target of a huge manhunt.

Hundreds of security forces scoured a swath of north-east Belgium after the disappearance on 17 May of Jurgen Conings, who was on an anti-terrorism watchlist, had threatened a senior virologist involved in the country’s Covid-19 programme and had hoarded heavy weaponry.

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Five construction workers die in Belgium school collapse

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Nine other people were injured when the Antwerp school, which was still under construction, collapsed

Five building workers have been confirmed dead after a school construction site partially collapsed in the Belgian city of Antwerp.

The last two bodies were pulled out the rubble on Saturday afternoon, Antwerp’s fire department said, meaning that all the missing victims were now accounted for.

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Belgium’s climate failures violate human rights, court rules

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Judges say state’s failure to meet climate targets breaches civil law and human rights convention

Belgium’s failure to meet climate targets is a violation of human rights, a Brussels court has ruled, in the latest legal victory against public authorities that have broken promises to tackle the climate emergency.

The Brussels court of first instance declared the Belgian state had committed an offence under Belgian’s civil law and breached the European convention on human rights.

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Belgium ambassador’s wife invokes immunity over Seoul assault claims

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Police will not pursue case after boutique staff alleged they were slapped and hit on head in row over shoplifting

The wife of Belgium’s ambassador to South Korea will exercise her diplomatic immunity to avoid criminal charges on allegations she hit two boutique staff in a row over shoplifting, police have said.

The ambassador, Peter Lescouhier, previously said that he “sincerely regrets the incident involving his wife”, adding that he “wants to apologise on her behalf”.

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Trouble brews between Trappist monks and Belgian mineral empire

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David and Goliath legal battle ensues as silent religious order seeks to protect the taste of its beer

For a decade the monks of Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy, in Rochefort, south Belgium – one of only 14 abbeys in the world producing Trappist beer – have been fighting with a quarry owner over the purity of the local spring water.

The monks have doggedly claimed that plans by Lhoist, an international company run by one of Belgium’s richest families, to deepen its chalk quarry and redirect the Tridaine spring risked altering the unique taste of their celebrated drink.

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Farmer moves border stone for tractor – and makes Belgium bigger

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French farmer could theoretically face criminal charges for moving 200-year-old marker

The boundary between France and Belgium is believed to have been inadvertently redrawn by a farmer who found the 200-year-old border stone marking the divide in an inconvenient location for his tractor.

The French farmer could theoretically face criminal charges after making Belgium bigger by moving the stone that has marked the border since after the defeat of Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo.

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Covid vaccine rollout rapidly gathering pace across Europe

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EU now confident that supply – the biggest problem in early months of year – should not be an obstacle to further acceleration

The restaurant and cafe terraces spilling out into the streets of the pretty Dutch medieval town of Sluis were teeming over the weekend with smiling people clinking glasses under the spring sun.

The Netherlands reopened alfresco hospitality last Wednesday and Belgians, ignoring official advice, had driven a short distance across the border in huge numbers to enjoy their neighbour’s freedom over the long Labour day weekend. “We could have filled 400 tables,” said an apologetic waiter at the Resto de Eetboetiek, as he turned away the latest family arriving without a reservation.

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Thousands mark May Day with rallies in France, Spain and Germany

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Police in Paris fire teargas as protesters in trade union-led march smash windows of bank branches

Thousands rallied on Saturday across France and Spain to hold May Day rallies in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic as police scuffled with protesters in Paris and fired teargas.

A police source told AFP that far-left “black bloc” protesters had repeatedly tried to block the trade union-led march in the French capital, with 34 people detained.

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Riot police break up illegal party in Brussels park using tear gas and water cannon – video

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Clashes erupted as riot police in Belgium used tear gas and water cannon to disperse revellers at an illegal party in Brussels' Bois de la Cambre park.

The event, dubbed 'La Boum 2', was a sequel to the fake festival arranged as an April Fools' Day joke at the same park on 1 April – and was held in defiance of the government's Covid-19 restrictions. A collective called 'L'abîme Team', the organiser of the event on social media, unsuccessfully tried to seek permission for the gathering, local media reported.

On 23 April, Belgium pressed ahead with plans to allow restaurant and cafe terraces to reopen on 8 May despite warnings from health officials that hospital saturation was starting to resemble that of Italy at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. From 8 May, up to 50 people will be also allowed to attend an outdoor event. More than 23,000 people out of in Belgium's 11 million population have died of Covid-19, with about 3,500 daily infections

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How continental Europe is emerging from Covid lockdown

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Countries across Europe are starting to relax coronavirus restrictions as case numbers fall

Counting on an accelerating vaccination campaign to keep new infections in check, much of continental Europe has announced plans for a gradual exit from lockdown over the coming weeks as case numbers begin to fall. Here is where things stand:

Belgium (at least one vaccine dose administered to 25% of whole population) aims to permit outside dining in restaurants and bars again on 8 May, with a mandatory 10pm closing time and tables limited to groups of four. Non-essential shops and hairdressers reopened on Monday.

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Colombia’s cartels target Europe with cocaine, corruption and torture

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Armed Belgian police raids have lifted the lid on a sinister new front in the drugs war

At 5am on a chilly Tuesday morning last month, 1,600 police officers and balaclava-wearing special forces, bristling with arms and battering rams, were ordered into action around the Belgian port city of Antwerp.

More than 200 addresses were raided in what was the largest police operation ever conducted in the country and potentially one of the most significant moves yet against the increasingly powerful narco-gangs of western Europe.

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The eggs factor: Belgian pop star finds fame again from rural Irish exile

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Philippe Robrecht was living the quiet life with his wife and hens when stardom came calling back

Something odd happened to Philippe Robrecht while hunkered down in lockdown on Inishbofin, a tiny island with just 170 inhabitants off Ireland’s Atlantic coast: he became, again, a pop star.

The 55-year-old musician and singer had not made an album in almost a decade and was all but forgotten in his native Belgium when the Covid-19 pandemic reached Ireland last year.

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Curfews and quarantines: Europe faces another Easter of Covid restrictions

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From France to Spain, Germany to Greece, tight rules are in place to contain the spread of coronavirus

Europe may not be subject to the drastic lockdown measures introduced to combat the first wave of coronavirus a year ago, but many countries still face another Easter of greatly reduced meeting and movement.

In France, new restrictions come into effect across the country from 7pm on Saturday that limit travel to within 10km (six miles) of home, absent one of the allowed “imperative” reasons. Sworn declarations known as “attestations” will be necessary for anyone travelling outside these rules.

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EU leaders push back against bloc’s plans to halt Covid vaccine export

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More sceptical member states hope ‘stick will never be used’ amid concerns over supply chain

EU leaders are likely to shy away from supporting the use of new powers to block Covid vaccine shipments to countries such as the UK with better jab coverage than the bloc, according to a draft statement ahead of a meeting of EU leaders today.

The European commission has increased its scope for blocking vaccine exports but disquiet among capitals is set to be reflected in a muted statement at the end of the virtual summit on Thursday evening.

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Yellow review – a gripping epic about fascism in Belgium

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Available online
Part two in NTGent’s Sorrows of Belgium trilogy is a visually arresting account of the rise of the Rex party and the horror of the second world war

Director Luk Perceval’s Sorrows of Belgium trilogy charts three dark chapters in the nation’s history, starting with colonial oppressions in the Congo in Black (produced by NTGent in 2019) and ending with the Brussels terrorist attacks of 2016 in Red (yet to be staged). The second instalment, Yellow, dramatises the rise of the fascist party Rex, which led to collaboration with Nazi occupiers.

What is immediately arresting in NTGent’s live-stream, with English subtitles, is the cinematic quality of the production. It is exquisitely filmed by Daniel Demoustier in the theatre, though not always on the stage. Shot almost entirely in black and white with some intermittent hues of yellow, it seems variously like a dance and a series of sorrowful tableaux of human suffering and collective delusion. Camera angles draw us into the roused faces of Belgian fascists, circling them dizzily as they spit out their rhetoric, and then drawing away to show them as a choreographed ensemble. Annette Kurz’s set design seems more like a moving painting, with the actors often performing on or around a table that serves as a miniature stage.

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EU parliament strips Carles Puigdemont and two other Catalans of immunity

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Spain seeking extradition related to separatists’ role in organising 2017 independence referendum

The European parliament has voted to lift the immunity of the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and two of his ministers, taking them a step closer to extradition and prosecution in Spain.

MEPs voted by 400 to 248 with 45 abstentions in the case of Puigdemont and 404 to 247 with 42 abstentions regarding Antoni Comín and Clara Ponsatí, respectively the former health and education ministers in Puigdemont’s government.

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Belgium considers U-turn on Oxford Covid vaccine for over-55s

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Several European countries opted not to give the jab to older age groups due to lack of data

People over the age of 55 in Belgium could be given the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, as the government seeks to “reset” its heavily criticised vaccination programme.

Belgium joined Germany, France, Poland and Italy last month in only giving the vaccine to younger groups due to a comparative lack of data on its efficacy in the older age ranges in the Oxford/AstraZeneca clinical trials.

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Open sesame: Alibaba’s push into Europe a mixed blessing for Liège

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Apart from the pollution, there are concerns the Chinese firm’s new airport hub may not revive the fortunes of the Belgian region

Braving an ominously grey sky, Ine Brants, 33, perches precariously at the top of a stepladder at Liège airport’s perimeter fence. “Ah, the green queen,” she says, raising the long lens of her camera to Challenge Airlines’ green-liveried jumbo jet as it flies into view. “You can get a 747 rush hour here. It has definitely got busier since coronavirus.”

Brants’ lens is capturing the Alibaba effect. Quietly over the last three years, Liège, Belgium’s third largest city, has been transformed into a launchpad for the Chinese e-commerce group’s push into the European marketplace, a dynamic boosted by the coronavirus pandemic. It is a cause for celebration for some and worry for others.

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