Ixelles Mayor Romain De Reusme has banned a demonstration organized by the anti-immigration and remigration advocate campaign Save Europe Act outside the European Parliament, prompting organizers to announce an immediate legal challenge and vow that supporters would still gather in the Belgian capital on Wednesday.
The decision was first disclosed on Tuesday in a Telegram channel launched specifically for the 15 July protest and was subsequently announced on the campaign’s X account. Organizers said the event had been prohibited one day before it was due to take place at Place du Luxembourg, directly outside the European Parliament.
‘This is how the Brussels regime operates: they strip the opposition of every democratic instrument,’ the Telegram message said. ‘But of course, we’re not backing down.’ The campaign added that a lawyer was ready to challenge the decision immediately.
A subsequent message told supporters that an ‘experienced team of lawyers’ was handling the case and had previously won similar disputes. Organizers said there remained a possibility that the demonstration could proceed as planned, but added that campaign representatives were already in Brussels and would ‘definitely do something’ regardless of the outcome.
The event had been scheduled for 2.45pm on Wednesday at Place du Luxembourg. Save Europe Act co-founders Eva Vlaardingerbroek and Martin Sellner were expected to address supporters. Organizers had previously announced that the gathering was ‘officially registered with the police’ before reporting the mayor’s intervention.
The campaign had planned to deliver its collected signatures to the EU institutions and demonstrate support for its proposed remigration programme. By Tuesday afternoon, the organizers had not published the written prohibition or any detailed legal justification, while no public explanation from Philippe Close’s office was immediately available.
Launched on 31 May, the Save Europe Act calls for a moratorium on non-Western and non-European immigration, stricter external border controls, faster deportations, and an EU-wide framework for voluntary or incentivized remigration. It passed 500,000 preliminary signatures on 7 July, halfway towards the organizers’ stated target of one million.
The European Commission has already warned that it may refuse to register the proposal, arguing that distinctions based on ‘ethnic, cultural or civilizational origin’ could constitute racial or ethnic discrimination contrary to the EU Charter and the bloc’s founding values.
Brussels already seen similar controversy in April 2024, when City of Brussels Mayor Philippe Close pressured the planned venue for the right-wing National Conservatism Conference—featuring Nigel Farage, Viktor Orbán, Éric Zemmour, and others—to cancel the event. The conference relocated twice before police attempted to shut it down under a separate order issued by Saint-Josse-ten-Noode Mayor Emir Kir. Belgium’s Council of State ultimately overturned the order, allowing the conference’s second day to proceed.
This article has been updated to correct the identity of the mayor who issued the protest ban. The order was issued by Ixelles Mayor Romain De Reusme, not City of Brussels Mayor Philippe Close.
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