The Belgian Government approved eight defence procurement files despite negative advice from the Finance Inspectorate during this term, including a Brussels Airport hangar deal.
According to an investigation by Knack published on Tuesday.
The magazine examined a file concerning a hangar at Brussels Airport owned by Belgian company Sabena Engineering. The facility is intended to store and service Defence’s A400M transport aircraft.
Those aircraft must undergo a so-called C-Heavy Inspection every six years, the most extensive maintenance procedure for a military transport plane.
Until recently, that work was carried out by Airbus near Madrid, but Ministry of Defence decided to bring the maintenance to Belgium.
Under the plan, the ministry would rent the hangar from Sabena Engineering for a total of €217,900 a month. As with all procurement files, the Ministry of Defence sought advice from the Finance Inspectorate.
Knack reports that the inspectorate found the proposal to be too expensive and issued a negative recommendation. Budget Minister Vincent Van Peteghem of CD&V gave an unfavourable assessment.
Defence Minister Theo Francken of N-VA then removed the file from the federal cabinet’s agenda at the end of 2025. A revised proposal submitted by Defence later received a second negative opinion from the Finance Inspectorate.
The cabinet nevertheless approved the file on 6 March 2026. "The Finance Inspectorate found the rent too high, but the cabinet overruled that," Francken’s spokesperson, Jan Van Camp, said.
"The Finance Inspectorate’s opinions are not binding," he added. "Otherwise we would no longer need a government, and the inspectorate would be running the country."
Knack said the government also disregarded negative advice from the Finance Inspectorate in other, much larger Defence files. It cited the case of training for student pilots among the examples.
According to the magazine, neither the hangar file nor the pilot training facility file was submitted to the parliamentary committee on military purchases.
In total, the Finance Inspectorate issued 41 negative opinions on Ministry of Defence procurement files during the current term, Knack reported. Of those, eight were still approved by the De Wever government regardless.
