Newsroom

Following the nomination of a presidential candidate for the Front Commun pour le Congo (FCC), Belgium welcomes the fact that the current president, Joseph Kabila Kabange, thereby renounces a third mandate, as stipulated in the Constitution and in the New Year’s Eve Agreement of 2016.
 

At the initiative of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders, and for the 7th consecutive year, the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is opening the Egmont Palace this summer to invite the public to discover a new art exhibition in this prestigious setting. The exhibition “AfricaMuseum @ EgmontPalace”, organised in collaboration with the Royal Museum for Central Africa, was inaugurated this morning by Minister Reynders in the presence of Queen Mathilde and of the Director of the museum Guido Gryseels.

On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Rome Statute, the founding text of the International Criminal Court, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders reiterates his support to this judicial institution which plays an essential role in the fight against impunity. Faced with the trends of withdrawal into oneself and unilateralism, a permanent international criminal jurisdiction with a universal vocation, complementary to national criminal jurisdictions, is more necessary than ever.

Today, exactly 4 years ago, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over the east of Ukraine. 298 citizens, including many children, lost their lives. Various compatriots also died. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders pays tribute to their memory.

Beyoncé, Chris Martin, Ed Sheeran, Pharrell Williams and a series of other international and African artists will join the international # SheIsEqual  campaign on December 2 at a grand final concert in Johannesburg. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Development Cooperation Alexander De Croo, who initiated #SheIsEqual and launched the campaign in June in Brussels, is ambitious. “This will be the largest ever campaign to support women’s rights and the Sustainable Development Goals.”

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders is pleased with the decision taken on 27 July in The Hague by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to assume the role of investigating the responsibilities for chemical attacks in Syria. 

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Development Cooperation Alexander De Croo, together with the Belgian chocolate sector and NGO’s, wants to push forward with sustainable chocolate. Those were the stakes of the first round table discussion on sustainable cocoa that the Minister held with a limited group of actors from the chocolate sector in Gentbrugge today. Civil society actors active in sustainability and the international cocoa sector also took part in the round table. The Minister’s initiative fits within the continuing realisation of the Belgian SDG Charter signed by companies, civil society, and the government.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Development Cooperation Alexander De Croo has decided to grant an additional € 4 million in humanitarian aid to UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for distributing humanitarian aid to more than 5 million Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. This new support brings Belgian aid to the UNRWA to more than € 11 million this year. With this support, Belgium wants UNRWA schools to reopen their doors to more than half a million Palestinian children after the summer holidays.

Princess Astrid, acting as Representative of the King, will lead an important trade mission to Argentina and Uruguay from 25 to 29 June. 202 participants, of which 134 businesspeople representing 94 companies, are participating in this Belgian Economic Mission.

Belgium has moved up from the 27th to the 18th place in the 2018 Aid Transparency Index. Among the European Union, our country has climbed to the 7th place. The Transparency Index is produced by Publish What You Fund and measures the extent to which donors transparently communicate on their development efforts. This matters for the accountability of development efforts as well as for the effectiveness of aid and the cooperation between different development actors.