A Federal MP for the Flemish green party (Groen) has accused Defence Minister Theo Francken (N-VA) of misleading parliament while defending his anti-drone plans.
For several weeks in October and November last year, drones were regularly spotted above Belgian military bases and airports, causing severe disruptions to air traffic. Francken called the situation a "military crisis" and pushed to accelerate Belgium's action plan against drones, launching a €50 million anti-drone initiative that included the purchase of jammers, trackers and interceptor drones.
During the drone crisis, Francken anonymously shared a video with the newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, showing a police helicopter near Brussels Airport in Zaventem on the night of 4 November. When he shared the video, Francken reportedly claimed that it showed one of the drones that had shut down the airport that day.
While Francken initially claimed to never have direct contact with the media, he later admitted to sending the video to a journalist.
During a special parliamentary commission in April, Francken said that he learned that the object in the video had been misidentified after a fact-check by VRT NWS on 19 November.
But Groen MP Staf Aerts claims that internal documents released to him by the Ministry of Defence show a first warning about the authenticity of the claims around the video was delivered on 6 November, while a definitive report identifying it as a helicopter was released on 12 November.
According to Aerts, Francken misled parliament with his statement on the timeline of events. "This is not a matter of interpretation. This is a minister who gave false information to parliament and time after time obfuscates the truth. These documents show that the minister lied," said Aerts.
The Brussels Times reached out to a representative of Francken for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
Raises 'a great many questions'
Aerts argued that the alleged error shows a "desperation to control the narrative". "There was clearly a great deal of eagerness to be able to show a video shot by a drone as soon as possible," he said.
"This led to sloppiness, and ultimately to a €50 million procurement contract with a company with which Francken had close ties – a contract about which many people are, quite rightly, raising a great many questions."
He also raised concerns about the video being edited before being sent. "Before submitting it to Het Laatste Nieuws, the minister himself edited it down by 10 seconds," he alleged. "Coincidence or not, the very section that was cut out is the part that the cabinet itself described late that night as the bit where the image looks like a helicopter."
