On Monday, 1 February, justice minister Stefaan De Clerck met with the Brussels prosecutor; at the same time, the police chief for Brussels-Elsene met with magistrates and with Brussels mayor Freddy Thielemans. One aspect of the new policy is certain to be an increase in cooperation between the various police zones in the capital.

According to police union representative Jan Schonkeren, some parts of the city have become impossible to police. Heavy firearms are more common, another union representative said, with a rifle of the Kalashnikov type now available to buy for €50 in some areas. This is particularly a cause for concern as the bulletproof vests issued to police are not resistant against that sort of weapon.

The latest incident took place during the attempted robbery of a Western Union office on the Adolphe Maxlaan in central Brussels. The men fled on the arrival of police and were pursued by a patrol car. Their vehicle collided with another car, and they then ran off, firing at police. One officer was hit three times in the leg.

Three men in their early 20s were arrested shortly afterwards in an apartment building in Laken. One of them confessed to being the driver of the vehicle. They were held on charges of armed robbery, attempted murder and conspiracy. Two Kalashnikov-style firearms were seized, although it is not yet clear if the weapons were those used in the robbery.

The robbery followed a fatal shooting in Molenbeek, in which a man who was trying to rob a Lidl supermarket was shot dead by police. He later turned out to be an escaped criminal, who was also armed with a Kalashnikov-type weapon. His shooting led to several days and nights of local unrest, with clashes between youth and police and damage to parked cars and bus shelters.

Then last week the industrial college ISIB said it was moving from the troubled Kuregem quarter of Anderlecht to central Brussels, following repeated muggings of students going to and from the school.

Vice prime minister Guy Vanhengel called for the creation of a single police zone for Brussels, while interior minister Annemie Turtelboom (like Vanhengel a member of the Flemish liberals Open VLD) pointed out that the law already allows for the zones to come together on a temporary basis. The party’s leaders in the Brussels and Flemish parliaments, Els Ampe and Sven Gatz, called for a conference on security in the capital and a single political voice to determine security policy. Brussels minister-president Charles Picqué is a supporter of the idea of a single police zone, but the mayors of the 19 municipalities are not expected to surrender without a fight what remains of their traditional hold over police control.

A security conference was described as “not the most appropriate response” by Flemish nationalist party N-VA: “For years, the criticism of Brussels security has been that there is too much talk and not enough action,” said deputy Ben Weyts. A conference would simply be more of the same, he said.

De Clerck, meanwhile, gave qualified support to calls for zero tolerance. “For certain parts of Brussels, a zero tolerance policy is needed for a certain period of time,” he said. The problem goes further than street thugs alone, he said, and called for reforms to the courts system to allow, for instance, for suspects to be dealt with rapidly.

Groen! member Luckas Vander Taelen, who has written extensively about living in one of the city’s troubled areas, supported calls for zero tolerance. “We have to get back to a situation in Brussels where you can walk in the street without having a knife put to your throat,” he said.