Belgium’s national security council will hold an emergency meeting on Thursday after drone sightings at airports caused chaos for travellers and raised security concerns.
Arrivals and departures were halted for several hours on Tuesday evening at Belgium’s busiest airport, Brussels, leading to the cancellation of dozens of flights. The skies were also closed over Liège airport, an important hub for freight transport, leading to further cancellations, delays and diversions.
Meanwhile, the mayor of the Flemish town of Diest reported that police and army officers had spotted four drones at the nearby Schaffen military airbase on Tuesday.
Before the latest sightings, Belgian authorities were already investigating mystery drone sightings at several military bases over the weekend, including Kleine-Brogel, near the Dutch border, which is home to Belgium’s F-16 fighter jets and widely reported to store US nuclear weapons.
The drone sightings in Belgium are only the latest, after an increase of incursions into European airspace since mid-September. In recent weeks, drones have been spotted in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Poland, Norway and Spain.
Lithuania closed its two largest airports last month after helium balloons, suspected of carrying contraband cigarettes, drifted into its airspace. Lithuania’s prime minister later called the intrusions “hybrid attacks” in an echo of the term used to describe destabilisation efforts by Moscow. In September, three Russian military jets made incursions into Estonian airspace, while Romania scrambled two F-16 jets after its skies were breached by a drone after a Russian attack on neighbouring Ukraine.
Belgium’s defence minister, Theo Francken, told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday the incidents in Belgium appeared to be coordinated to foment disruption, involving large drones flying in formation. “It is in line with the hybrid techniques seen in other countries. This is not just someone who flies a drone by chance over a military site or airport … There are a number of indications that this was organised in a very structured way.”
The Belgian government has not said who it thinks is responsible for the drones, but a source told the Belga news agency that the security services had “little doubt” that a state actor was behind recent sightings, “very probably Russia”. The point was reported to have been made at a meeting to prepare Thursday’s national security council, reported Le Soir.
Tensions have increased between Belgium and Russia in recent weeks, while Brussels has faced pressure from EU partners to enable the use of Russia’s frozen assets to aid Ukraine.
Last week, Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev, known for his bombastic social media posts, called Francken an imbecile, an apparent response to a media interview the Belgian defence minister had given a few days earlier. Francken, a blunt-speaking Flemish nationalist, said he was not concerned about Russia launching a nuclear attack on Brussels because Nato would “flatten Moscow”.
The spat came after Belgium disappointed EU allies by blocking a plan to loan Ukraine €140bn based on Russian frozen assets held in Brussels. Talks are continuing to reach an agreement on the plan by the end of the year.
In his meeting with MPs, Francken said Belgium did not intend to invoke Nato’s article 4, which allows members of the transatlantic alliance to consult on security threats, seeking to correct an impression he had given earlier in the day.
Belgium’s interior minister, Bernard Quentin, said the repetition of drone incidents “directly affected the security of our country”.
He called for the meeting of the national security council, comprised of the prime minister, Bart De Wever, his most senior ministers, as well as police and security services when relevant. “We must act in a calm, serious and coordinated manner,” Quentin wrote on X.
Brussels airport was warning passengers on Wednesday afternoon that disruptions to their journey remained possible. A spokesperson said 95 flights had been cancelled, including more than half after the airport re-opened on Wednesday because many planes were in the wrong place.
About 400 to 500 people spent the night at Brussels airport because of the disruption, the spokesperson said.
