Brussels Airport
The Brussels government will not appeal against the Flemish environmental permit for Brussels Airport. However, that is exactly what Alain Maron (Ecolo), Brussels Minister of the Environment, announced on Thursday evening. But his colleague in the Brussels government, Sven Gatz (Open VLD), is personally in favor of it.
“That appeal will not happen, I am sure,” Gatz said in De morgen on Radio 1. He does not need consultation with the Brussels government for this. “I only have to take myself into account. If Maron comes to the government next week with a proposal for an appeal, I will be against it. Even if I’m the only one, that’s when it stops. The Brussels government works in consensus.”
Gatz regrets that Maron went to the press with his objection. “We discussed it in the government for two hours yesterday and he didn’t say a word about it.”
The Brussels Minister of Budget acknowledges that the Flemish environmental permit for Zaventem airport is not without problems for Brussels. “We have communicated our concerns about the procedure to Flanders. The airport causes inconvenience in Brussels and we want to limit this as much as possible. But at the same time it is an economic engine and provides a lot of work for the people of Brussels. The environmental permit nevertheless limits the number of night flights and makes aircraft increasingly quieter. That seems like a balanced decision to me.”
“We want fewer night flights. But the airport also has many benefits for the city. There are many young, low-skilled job seekers who find a job there. What is now presented is balanced. It’s not perfect, but you have to move on at some point. Pretending that you can strangle and close the airport, as Maron does, is disastrous.”
Gatz points out that Ecolo also had a key to limiting the airport’s nuisance, given that the flight routes are a federal responsibility. “And Gilkinet (Minister of Mobility for Ecolo, ed.) has been able to make little progress there. If Ecolo now pretends that Flanders is doing too little: they have had five years to improve the flying law.”
