Het Control and Reporting Centre (CRC) verhuisde in september 2020 naar Bevekom. Toen al was er sprake van de oprichting van het NASC.

In juni 2022 benadrukte toenmalig Lt.-KOL SBH Ann D'Hondt al in het Belgisch Militair Tijdschrift de nood tot verdere ontwikkeling.

Bron: t.co/4sDatiXvt2

Militaire programmeringswet, 2 juni 2022.

Bron: www.dekamer.be/doc/flwb/pdf...

Beleidsverklaring Defensie, 4 november 2020.

Bron: www.dekamer.be/doc/flwb/pdf...

Tentative allocation of Security Action for Europe (#SAFE) loans as agreed by the European Commission.

Next steps:
- submission of National Defence Investment Plans by 30 Nov. 2025.
- prefinancing triggered from Feb. 2026 onwards, after Council decision (up to 15% of the loan)

De beleidsnota defensie verwijst naar deze vraag, maar het is een dilemma dat een diepgaand (parlementair) debat verdient.

NAVO verplichtingen nakomen én substantieel bijdragen aan een Europese coalitie lijkt immers moeilijk haalbaar.

During the Q&A following yesterday's speech, NATO SG Mark Rutte suggested that NATO could consider partially declassifying capability targets.

While the country specific targets are secret, an exposure approach might be the only way to discipline laggards such as Belgium.

See 🧵 below 👇

The situation becomes especially concerning when we examine Belgium's annual defence spending on equipment. In 2024, NATO Europe and Canada average 32,5% of their budgets for this purpose. In stark contrast, Belgium allocates just 15,2% to equipment, placing it at the bottom alongside Canada.

9/12

When we compare the share of Belgium’s annual defence spending allocated to personnel with that of other NATO member states, we find that only five countries spend a higher proportion of their budget on personnel (Italy, Portugal, Croatia, Greece and Bulgaria).

8/12

Belgium’s defence budget tells an interesting story: while personnel spending has decreased from 77% in 2014 to 50% in 2024, investment in equipment has seen only modest growth since 2018 (still insufficient to meet the Wales pledge of allocating 20% of annual spending to equipment).

7/12

Since 2014, Belgium’s defence expenditure has been consistently lower than the average expenditure of NATO Europe and Canada. Moreover, the gap has grown (with the exception of 2021/2022, when spending levels for NATO Europe and Canada temporarily stalled).

5/12

Tomorrow, Mon 25 Nov, students and staff of Dutch universities will gather in The Hague to protest against the announced massive budget cuts on higher education.

These budget cut plans are irresponsible, harmful and extremely short-sighted.

We can’t let it happen.

Today, at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Maastricht University, we stand together against the announced budget cuts on higher education in the Netherlands.

The EU intends to make the Rapid Deployment Capacity operational by 2025.

In this new article in International Affairs, Christoph Meyer, Lt. Gen. Ton van Osch and I ask: “has the EU learnt the right lessons from the Battlegroups failure?”

academic.oup.com/ia/article/1...

"Ad hoc coalitions: From hierarchical to network accountability in peace operations?"

We have a new ADHOCISM paper out in Global Policy: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... - Open access!

Co-authored with Stephanie Hofmann (EUI) and John Karlsrud (NUPI)