Belgium’s Summer of Crises Raises State Reform Question

The summer of 2026 was meant to be a season of rest for Belgium’s political class. Instead, it became a season of reckoning. Heatwaves claimed more lives than anywhere else in Europe, the largest wildfire in Belgian history scorched the High Fens, and a wave of drug-related shootings swept through Brussels. Each crisis exposed the same underlying fragility: a federal government financially drained by six successive state reforms, yet still responsible for the country’s core security functions.

Now, as VRT NWS political journalist Ivan De Vadder argues in a sweeping analysis, Belgium faces a question that has haunted its politics for decades: who should ultimately coordinate this fragmented state?

The Gold Commander: A Symbol of Fragmentation

On August 26, the conference of Brussels mayors appointed Michel Goovaerts, chief of the Brussels-Capital/Elsene police zone, as “Gold Commander” to coordinate all six Brussels police zones in the fight against drug-related violence. The appointment came after a week of escalating shootings, including an attack on a police station in Anderlecht and multiple incidents in Saint-Gilles, as VRT NWS reported.

The Gold Commander concept, borrowed from UK emergency management protocols, had previously been used only for New Year’s Eve celebrations in Brussels. Its deployment for an ongoing security crisis signals how deeply the drug violence has shaken the capital. Interior Minister Bernard Quintin (MR) described the situation as a “national emergency,” deploying 40 additional federal police officers and an extra infantry platoon. “If Anderlecht loses, Brussels loses,” Quintin warned. “And if Brussels loses, all of Belgium loses.”

Goovaerts started his new role immediately, with the 170 Special Assistance Units of the Brussels police now operating under his unified command, as BRUZZ confirmed.

But the deeper problem, as Saint-Gilles Mayor Jean Spinette (PS) put it, is structural: “Politics has underestimated drug capitalism. We have underfunded our federal police and our public prosecutors for years.”

A Summer of Exposed Weaknesses

The drug violence was not the only crisis that laid bare Belgium’s governance gaps. In June, Belgium recorded 1,747 excess deaths during a heatwave that stretched from June 18 to July 1 — the highest excess mortality in Europe, as VRT NWS detailed. The New York Times called Belgium “a case study into what went wrong.” Four climate ministers — one federal without real powers, three regional — struggled to coordinate a response.

Then came the High Fens wildfire in August. The largest in Belgian history, it burned approximately 3,200 hectares and required international assistance from the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, and Luxembourg. The RTBF investigation revealed a bitter irony: the Walloon government’s own Department of Nature and Forests may have caused the fire by failing to prohibit mowing activities in the nature reserve in early August. As De Vadder concluded: “The government had difficulty extinguishing the fire that the government itself caused to flare up.”

The Budget Trap

These crises all demanded federal resources at a moment when the federal government is financially at its weakest. Six successive state reforms since 1970 have progressively stripped the federal level of funding, leaving it responsible for core “regalian” functions — police, justice, fire services, defense — with increasingly limited means.

“The budget exercise facing the De Wever government is a hopeless task,” De Vadder wrote. The 2026 budget already included 9.8 billion euros in savings measures, and the pressure from NATO on defense spending further squeezes other departments.

Edwin De Boeck, former chief economist of N-VA, captured the structural paradox in an interview with De Standaard: “The regions are barely responsible for their own revenues and live mainly from federal allocations. The draining of the federal government is no longer sustainable. Budget consolidation will never succeed without also turning the community knobs.”

Two Visions for Belgium’s Future

This brings Belgium back to its perennial political question: state reform. The debate now crystallizes around two competing visions, as De Morgen reported.

On one side stands N-VA, which ultimately wants more powers transferred to the Flemish level, moving toward confederalism. On the other stands MR leader Georges-Louis Bouchez, who proposes bringing powers back to the Belgian (federal) level. As Knack noted, Bouchez may now be better positioned than Prime Minister Bart De Wever to set the agenda on this issue.

De Vadder frames the question in characteristically vivid terms: “Who becomes the Gold Commander of Belgium?” The answer will determine whether Belgium moves toward more fragmentation or toward re-centralization — and whether the federal state can regain the financial and structural capacity to respond to the next crisis.

What to Watch For

A joint parliamentary committee on Interior and Justice is scheduled for September 2 to question ministers Quintin and Verlinden about the Brussels shootings. The government’s budget exercise looms in the autumn. And the September interministerial conference on heat policy will test whether the lessons of the summer translate into concrete action.

Belgium’s summer of 2026 exposed a governance model under strain. The question now is whether the political class can find the will — and the vision — to fix it before the next crisis arrives.