UBCNA verdraait nu ook al het EU vestigingsbeleid. Elk EU-land krijgt standaard een Agentschap toegewezen, een puur politieke beslissing die NIETS met de luchthaven te maken heeft. Het was nooit de bedoeling ze in België te hebben, van bij de start werden ze in verschillende EU-landen opgericht.

Zie http://europa.eu/agencies/index_fr.htm voor lijst bestaande Agentschappen.

Mail UBCNA 23.5.2006

From: U.B.C.N.A. - B.U.T.V. [mailto:ubcna@woluwe1150.irisnet.be]
Sent: dinsdag 23 mei 2006 16:37
To: redaction@belga.be
Subject: Article New Europe Kassandra's Notebeeok : Brussels Airport ...

What petty politics and human stupidity can achieve

At a distance of only seven kilometres from ½Rond Point Schuman…, the political and administrative centre of the European Union since 1957, a situation has developed, which for no essential reason is undermining the future expansion of Brussels as the capital of Europe. It is the national airport of Brussels at Zaventem, which alone serves the air-transport growing needs of the capital of Europe. The airport was build by the Nazis during World War II because the location was convenient for bombing London and sufficiently far from the Allied Forces. This explains why the airport is so close to the centre of the city, but it does not explain why Belgian authorities did not build a second airport at a certain distance and why they let local interests play around with the use of the airport.

Just to mention two examples: the Italians in Milan constructed Malpensa 60 kilometres from the centre to replace Linate, which is just a few kilometres from the Duomo; in Rome they limited the use of Ciampino, located near the city centre, to official visitors and have replaced it by constructing Leonardo Da Vinci at Fiumicino, located some 40 kilometres from the centre. It is quite difficult to explain why the Belgians, with the massive income they receive from EU related traffic, do not build a new airport outside Brussels? Moreover, Brussels would likely receive heavy subsidies from the EU for such a project.

A second even more important drawback of this situation is the under grading of the quality of life and the value of the properties of citizens living in the part of the city adjacent to the airport, mostly Commission and Parliament executives. The problem became much more acute for the people living near the airport in early 2004 when the notorious air traffic plan ½Anciaux-Landuyt-Cornillie… was introduced. Bert Anciaux and Renaat Landuyt are the successive Ministers for Mobility and Transport of the Belgian Federal Government since 2004, respectively, and are both from the Flemish socialist party SP-Spirit. Jan Cornillie is the Head of Cabinet of both. The base of the SP-Spirit was the ½Anciaux Plan…, which aims to route departing planes to make a left turn over the city instead of directing them to turn right over the fields. In this way, noisy and polluting flights fly over Brusels day and night all days of the week, with whatever risks it implies for one and only reason: to bother, yes to bother, the French speaking areas of Brussels in the context of the eternal Flemish-Walloons war games at the expense, this time, of 25.000 European Union functionaries living in the areas between ‘Rond Point Schuman� and the airport.

The issue is very serious and certainly requires further investigation, which New Europe just opened and welcomes comments from all sides, not only because it is a matter seriously involving the human rights of Europeans at the very heart of Europe, but because it is a classical example worth studying of how petty politics of a few narrow-minded people can affect the life and future of many people. Indeed, the case of Zaventem airport (long walking and other defects stemming from expanding under pressure an already existing old military infrastructure) is one of the reasons that the European Commission is locating all of its new Agencies outside Belgium.