Securail, the NMBS/SCNB security service, was called upon more than 7,000 times last year to intervene at Brussels South station. This was reported by the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, among others, based on figures from Minister of Mobility Jean-Luc Crucke (Les Engagés). With an average of 20 interventions per day for incidents in Brussels South, this is a new, although unflattering record.
The dramatic security situation in Brussels-South, one of Belgium’s busiest stations with around 58,000 passengers a day, came to the fore two years ago after an Antwerp family, who were waiting there at night for the first train home in the morning, made a video of their “night of horror” in and around the station. They witnessed fights, drug deals, and even a stabbing.
58,000 passengers a day
Some two years later, apart from the opening of a police station on the premises, little has changed in terms of the general feeling of insecurity, the newspaper writes. It remains a hotspot of nuisance and insecurity with persistent problems with homeless people, although the latter is also being encouraged by the government itself.
For example, Minister of Migration and Social Integration Anneleen Van Bossuyt (N-VA) still refuses to provide shelter to asylum seekers who have already been recognized as refugees elsewhere, something for which the government has been condemned several times.
She also recently scrapped the 65,000-euro federal subsidy that five cities, including Brussels, receive for implementing the cold weather plan. This plan allows hundreds of additional beds to be made available for homeless people from November to March.
Long-standing problems
The area around the station, which is not a particularly pleasant neighborhood, architecturally speaking, with many empty, uninviting squares and spaces, a feeling that is reinforced by the work currently underway on Metro 3, is also regularly the scene of armed showdowns with the Brussels drug scene.
And not unimportantly, the Fonsny real estate project at Brussels South is on hold due to an appeal to the Council of State, but the current budgetary context also plays a role. With this large-scale project, the NMBS/SCNB aims to build a new railway building by renovating and expanding the existing facilities. The Brussels Region had issued an urban development permit for this in December 2022. The project is part of a broader initiative to make the area around the station more attractive.
The fact that Brussels has been without a government for more than 500 days does not make decisive policy-making and cooperation between the central and local government and mayors any easier.
In addition, the Brussels police and judicial services lack sufficient staff to perform all their tasks adequately, while the six local police zones are also structurally underfunded. Recently, local police forces and the Federal Police have been granted real-time access to the NMBS/SNCB camera network in and around the station.
