This may finally be changing. A succession of shootings across the Belgian capital – at the time of writing there have been three shootings in as many days – has brought the scale of the problem into sharper focus. The latest BBC report highlights the growing number of drug-related shootings and the hundreds of locations across Brussels where drugs are believed to be sold.
The immediate picture is troubling. But there is another, more constructive story emerging: Belgium’s authorities are beginning to treat organised drug crime as the strategic threat it has become, rather than merely as a succession of disconnected street-level incidents. That distinction matters.
The violence is ultimately a consequence of economics. Brussels has become an important retail market for cocaine and other narcotics entering Europe, while nearby Antwerp has emerged as one of the continent’s principal gateways for cocaine shipments. The enormous profits generated by this trade create incentives for criminal organisations that conventional policing alone cannot easily extinguish.
EU Today has been tracking Brussels’ drug war
EU Today has been documenting the transformation of Brussels’ drugs market and the associated rise in violence for some time. Our reporting on Brussels drug wars and the loss of control of the streets has examined how drug dealing had become increasingly visible in the Belgian capital, with criminal groups competing for territory and market share.
That reporting is significant because it places the latest shootings in a much broader context. The violence did not appear overnight. It is the consequence of a criminal market that has expanded sufficiently to make territorial control extraordinarily valuable.
Our coverage of escalating drug violence in Brussels and the authorities’ response similarly highlighted the succession of shootings and the growing challenge facing Belgian police.
The underlying economic calculation is brutally simple. Where enormous profits are available, criminal organisations will compete to control supply routes, distribution networks and retail markets. That is why conventional policing, although indispensable, cannot be the entire answer.
From street dealers to organised crime
Brussels’ problem is also inseparable from Belgium’s position at the centre of Europe’s logistics network. Antwerp is one of Europe’s principal gateways for cocaine entering the continent. From there, sophisticated criminal organisations can exploit established transport networks to move narcotics across borders.
Brussels is both a major consumer market and a political and commercial centre situated at the heart of those European networks. The result is a problem that increasingly resembles a European organised-crime challenge rather than a conventional local policing issue.
EU Today’s investigation into Belgium’s emergence as a potential narco-state placed the Brussels violence within precisely this wider context, examining concerns about organised crime, corruption, money laundering and the growing financial power of criminal organisations.
That perspective is essential. A criminal organisation does not become less powerful simply because one street dealer is arrested. It becomes less powerful when its leadership, finances, logistics and ability to recruit are systematically dismantled. That means following the money.
The case for a tougher European response
Belgian authorities have increased police resources in areas affected by violence, while prosecutors have called for stronger investigations aimed at identifying those directing criminal organisations rather than simply those operating at street level.
This is a step in the right direction. The most effective strategy will combine visible policing with sophisticated financial investigations. Money laundering, front companies, corrupt intermediaries, property purchases and luxury assets should all become targets. The objective should be to make organised crime a less attractive business proposition. That requires European co-operation.
Criminal networks do not respect national borders. Cocaine can originate thousands of kilometres away, enter Europe through a major port, pass through several countries and ultimately be sold on a Brussels street corner.
Law enforcement cannot remain organised around the same borders. Europe already possesses many of the necessary tools: Europol, cross-border financial intelligence, customs co-operation, joint investigations and increasingly sophisticated systems for tracking illicit financial flows.
What has often been missing is political urgency. The present crisis may finally provide it.
Brussels needs to reclaim its streets
The most encouraging aspect of the current response is the growing recognition that public space cannot simply be surrendered to organised crime.
Residents should not have to accept shootings, open dealing or intimidation as an inevitable feature of life in a European capital.
The objective should not be dramatic headlines about “war” on drugs. It should be something much more practical: making neighbourhoods safer, disrupting criminal supply chains and ensuring that the state remains visibly more powerful than the gangs.
That requires enforcement, but it also requires prevention.
Young people recruited as couriers, lookouts and street dealers are often the disposable end of a much larger criminal enterprise. Removing them from criminal networks requires education, employment opportunities and effective intervention by local services.
Yet prevention works best when criminal organisations know that recruitment will be met with a credible law-enforcement response, something that has been lacking.
A European problem requires a European answer
The significance of Brussels’ drugs crisis extends beyond Belgium. The capital is home to the European Union’s principal institutions. What happens on its streets therefore carries an obvious symbolic importance.
A city in which organised criminal groups can openly compete for territory risks damaging confidence not only in local government and policing but in the wider European project.
Conversely, a successful crackdown could demonstrate something equally important: that European states remain capable of adapting to sophisticated transnational criminal threats. The challenge is substantial. But the response is becoming more coherent.
EU Today’s continuing coverage of Brussels drug gangs, organised crime and Belgium’s wider narco-state threat has helped expose the scale of the challenge. The latest developments suggest that policymakers are increasingly recognising the need to confront the underlying criminal economy rather than simply reacting to individual shootings.
Brussels has spent years discovering just how profitable its criminal economy has become. It is now beginning to demonstrate that the state can make that economy considerably less profitable — and considerably less attractive to those who run it.
The battle is far from over, but if Belgium combines tougher policing, financial investigations, international co-operation and meaningful prevention, Brussels has every opportunity to turn the tide.
For Europe’s capital, that would be an important victory — not simply over drug gangs, but for the principle that public space belongs to citizens, not criminal organisations. This is not necessarily the case in Brussels at present.
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