Urged by eleven municipalities and by the Brabant Flemish province, which threaten to take legal action if he does not propose a decree quickly on air routes for the Brussels Airport (Zaventem), the Federal Minister of Transport, François Bellot, announced Wednesday that he is waiting for the study on sound incidence, which justice requested from him. To this day, the Minister MR has received no complaint nor citation to justice from the said municipalities, and refuses therefore to act on the liability announced in the press Het Laatste Nieuws and De Morgen, indicated his cabinet to Belga. He reminds that he does not wish to transfer sound disturbances from one zone to another, as it has been done in the past, and envisages a global approach in seven chapters, of which legislation on flight procedures would only be one element.
In any case, this law does not aim at determining which regions can be flown over and, therefore, will not provide a solution to residents being flown over, specifies the Cabinet. In the beginning of last year, Minister MR presented his global approach to members of a reduced ministerial committee (kern), but no consensus was met. On the basis of an audit on the utilization of ideas, which he himself had recommended, the Minister observed that the wind norms system had to be clarified.
Furthermore, the Brussels Court in its judgment last July had enjoined him to order the completion, by a neutral and independent organization, of an incident study on sound disturbance provoked by the airport and solutions on possible replacements, before the end of July 2018. “This is the first time that an independent study such as this is undertaken; it is logic therefore that we wait for this report and that we analyze it,” indicated the Bellot Cabinet.
The Brussels Times
