Two thirds of Belgians in favour of signing treaty banning nuclear weapons

Two thirds of Belgians in favour of signing treaty banning nuclear weapons

Two-thirds of Belgians want the country to countersign the banning of nuclear weapons, according to an opinion poll conducted by the Belgian coalition against atomic weaponry. "This shows there is wide support for a more ambitious Belgian policy in the context of nuclear disarmament," the press release stated.
 
Two-thirds of the polls suggest that Belgium should sign the United Nations treaty on the banning of nuclear arms, it emerged from a survey of 1,006 Belgians carried out at the organisation's request.
 
In 2017, 122 member states of the UN voted in favour of banning nuclear weapons. The treaty aims to halt the development, testing, production, stockpiling, trade in, use and the threat to use nuclear arms. This is not the case in Belgium or NATO's other member states.
 
The majority of those taking part in the poll (66%) was also in favour of the withdrawal of Belgian financial institutions from the nuclear armaments industry.
 
The majority (53%) also considers that the new F35 fighter jets should not have a nuclear capacity, which is about double the number of those who said they were in favour (27%).
 
Those polled who said they were against the presence of American nuclear weapons at Kleine Brogel are also more numerous than those declaring themselves in favour of maintaining it (49% against 27%).
 
The Belgian coalition against atomic weapons, therefore, wants the different political parties to take these results into account before the next elections.
 
The treaty against nuclear armament was adopted on July 7, 2017, at the United Nations with 122 votes for and one voice - that of the Netherlands, a NATO member - against, with one abstention. Neither the nine nuclear-weapon States (United States, Russia, United Kingdom, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel), nor Japan, nor the countries of the Atlantic Alliance - thus including Belgium - took part in the vote (except the Netherlands that voted against).
 
The Brussels Times


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