Groen’s Horch Urges Single Interfederal Climate Cell
Groen party chair Aimen Horch is calling for a single interfederal climate cell to coordinate Belgium’s climate policy, arguing that the country’s competencies are so fragmented that no single minister feels responsible for acting. Horch launched the proposal on 19 September 2026 during VRT NWS De Ochtend on Radio 1 and repeated it later that day at the Groen political season kick-off in Mechelen.
“After six state reforms we have more climate ministers than firefighting planes,” Horch said. “Climate policy in our country is so fragmented that every climate minister can point to another level, and ultimately nothing happens.”
A Proposal to End Fragmented Governance
Belgium’s climate and environment competencies are split across the federal state, the three regions (Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels) and the three communities - a division deepened by successive state reforms. Under Horch’s plan, civil servants currently working at each policy level would be seconded into a single team to jointly develop one national climate policy.
The Groen chair insists no state reform is needed to create the body. In his party’s official statement, he pointed to IRCEL, the interregional cell for the environment created years ago to coordinate air quality monitoring, as a precedent. “If it can be done for air quality, it can be done for climate,” Horch said. “One cell for the whole country, under one clear command, so that our resilience increases.”
Over the longer term, Horch argues that the Energy competency should be re-federalized - a notable reversal of decades of devolution, given that energy was largely regionalized in 1980.
The Hoge Venen Fire as Political Flashpoint
Horch has framed the devastating summer 2026 wildfire in the Hoge Venen (Hautes Fagnes) as proof that the current division of responsibilities fails. The blaze, the largest in Belgium in over a century, burned up to roughly 3,000 hectares, forced hundreds of evacuations and required Dutch helicopters and EU firefighting planes because Belgium had no firefighting aircraft of its own.
“Just look at the devastating Hoge Venen fire: all the different competent ministers were warned 11 times, yet all action failed to materialize,” Horch said. “The great fragmentation meant nobody felt truly responsible.”
That criticism echoes concerns raised in parliament last month by Vlaams Belang’s Ortwin Depoortere, chair of the Chamber Interior Committee, who said the fragmentation of responsibility and the absence of clear command were central problems in the fire response.
Opposition From the Governing Coalition
The proposal drew a sharp response from the governing N-VA. Flemish MP Andy Pieters dismissed it as needless bureaucracy.
“An extra interfederal climate structure? Sure. Yet another talking shop where one can mainly produce extra structures, paper plans and CO2 rules. No, thank you,” Pieters told VRT NWS. “Flanders does not need more climate bureaucracy, but investment that protects us against the climate that is already changing.”
Pieters noted that Belgium already has a National Climate Commission and several interfederal consultation bodies, warning against adding another layer of governance. The exchange highlights a broader dispute over whether Belgium’s climate problem is one of coordination or of ambition.
Budget Politics and Broader Positioning
The climate proposal comes as part of Groen’s political-season relaunch and at a moment of intense federal budget negotiations, with the government seeking roughly 10 billion euros by a mid-October deadline. Horch paired his climate pitch with budget measures: cutting fossil fuel subsidies, cleaning up corporate subsidies, introducing a genuine millionaires’ tax, and reversing the expansion of flexi-jobs and the retention of management company arrangements.
“The Arizona parties are not putting the budget in order,” Horch said, using the nickname of the federal coalition led by Prime Minister Bart De Wever. “They are stripping our social security and dismantling our social protection, while the budget figures sink ever deeper into the red.”
The proposal also lands amid a wider debate on state reform. De Wever has suggested a new state reform is needed, while PS chair Paul Magnette and federal Climate Minister Jean-Luc Crucke of Les Engages have opposed it. Notably, Horch’s plan sidesteps that constitutional fight entirely by seeking an administrative coordination body rather than a transfer of powers.
What’s Next
As an opposition party, Groen cannot implement the plan alone. Whether the idea gains traction will depend on whether it can attract support across the federal and regional governments that would have to staff and recognize such a cell. The proposal is likely to feature in the coming parliamentary year as Groen presses the Arizona coalition to act on climate resilience in the wake of the summer’s fires and heatwaves - a season European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the “summer of truth” for climate change. For now, the debate crystallizes a deeper question for Belgium: whether coordination, rather than more or less devolution, is the missing piece of its climate governance.