The right-wing Flemish nationalist party, N-VA, called on Friday for a special parliamentary committee to be set up in the Brussels Parliament, to strengthen the regional approach to polarisation, radicalisation and terrorism in the capital.
"This is the second time that Brussels has been hit by an Islamist terrorist attack under your government. The question is whether sufficient lessons were learnt [from the 2016 attacks] in this parliament," argued Flemish Minister Mathias Vanden Borre, addressing Brussels Minister-President Rudi Vervoort (PS).
Vanden Borre spoke to the Regional Parliament on Friday morning during the debate on the general policy statement read out by Vervoort the day before.
In his view, lessons from the devastating 2016 terror attacks in Brussels had not been learnt in the Capital Region.
This request for a special parliamentary committee was strongly criticised by the Brussels leader of the Socialist Party (PS), Ridouane Chahid. He pointed out that the previous MR/N-VA government had reduced the resources allocated to the police and justice system, particularly in Brussels.
"The N-VA disinvested in the police and the judiciary," he retorted during his intervention in the debate, not without taking a swipe at MR group leader David Leisterh in the process.
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In a long list of criticisms of the Brussels Government, the liberal had notably indicated that Vervoort's mandate, to which he attributed a negative record, was expected "first and foremost to fight insecurity and crime, which are killing the quality of life."
The socialist leader responded: "It's all very well for the N-VA to attack these functions, but for you to do so, as a Belgian, is like the pot calling the kettle black".
