Belgium’s House Committee for Interior Affairs will meet early at the request of opposition parties Anders and PTB/PVDA to discuss the wildfire in the High Fens, although no date has yet been set.
The Federal Parliament is still in its summer recess, but urgent matters are often enough to bring committees together before the break ends. Anders MP Arthur Orlians said the High Fens fire was one such case.
“There are many questions to which Interior Minister Quintin must answer in parliament,” Orlians said, adding that the country needs to prepare for future wildfires.
Orlians said his party believed it was obvious that the issue should be discussed with the minister in parliament in the coming days.
PTB/PVDA parliamentary leader Sofie Merckx has also called for an urgent meeting of the Interior Affairs committee. She said her party wanted to understand why no federal phase of crisis management had been declared and what impact years of cuts to Civil Protection and the emergency services may have had.
Speaker of the House Peter De Roover responded positively to the request. It is now up to committee chair Ortwin Depoortere of Vlaams Belang to set a date for the meeting.
