The week in brief: 4 September

About 150 people held a peaceful march in the Antwerp district of Borgerhout on Sunday in support of their neighbourhood and in protest, they said, at comments made by mayor Bart De Wever and impressions given in the media. The demonstration followed an incident in which two police officers were injured by a crowd of young people when they were trying to restrain a driver who had crashed her car. Organisers said on their Facebook page that they were concerned about both the mayor and the media “stigmatising whole groups of the population”.

Children from more prosperous families in Flanders score better at school, according to research by professors at the universities of Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve. Children from the highest socio-economic class have a 79% chance of being placed in the general education track, as opposed to the technical and professional streams, while among children from a lower class, the chances drop to 22%.

Anyone planning home improvements can expect delays of up to six weeks and higher costs because of a shortage of insulation materials, the construction industry federation Bouwunie said. MDI, a key component of rigid insulation panels is produced mainly in Germany, where a major supplier has encountered production problems, cutting supplies across Europe.

The government of Flanders has announced plans to build a new building for administrative staff in the North Station area of Brussels. The building, which is scheduled for completion in 2023, would provide 67,000 square metres of space and be one of the biggest construction projects in the capital in recent years.

The most popular names for new babies in Flanders in 2016 were Lucas and Mila, scoring 369 and 355 times respectively. In second place came Finn and Emma, followed by Louis and Olivia. In Brussels, the names Adam, Mohamed and Gabriel led for boys, and Lina, Sofia and Nour for girls.

The rail union ACOD Spoor has called on its members to take part in a 24-hour strike on 10 October, as part of what it called a reaction of the whole public sector to government policy. The union’s postal division announced a strike for the same day. Both telecommunications minister Alexander De Croo and state enterprise minister François Bellot said the strike announcements were “unacceptable”.

The Hertoginnedal castle in Oudergem, where federal politicians often meet for lengthy negotiations, will be open to the public on 9 September from 10.00 to 18.00. The opening, with concerts by a local choir and music academy students, marks a triple anniversary: the centenary of the restoration of the chapel, the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, negotiated in the castle, and the centenary of a charity event for war orphans.
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Blankenberge was the most popular coastal city for apartment buyers in the last year to the end of June. Compared to last year, the town saw an increase of 12.3% in the number of real estate transactions. The average price of an apartment in the first half of the  period was €273,000.

A job advert featuring a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf was deleted from Twitter last week, leading to criticism that the government had responded inappropriately to hateful messages. The photograph was used in an ad about job opportunities with the government and was deleted from Twitter on the order of administrative affairs minister Liesbeth Homans. Homans said that not all jobs allow the wearing of a headscarf and that the ad could “create false expectations”. The woman in the photo works for the employment and training agency VDAB.

The annual Waregem Koerse horse-racing event has come in for criticism following the latest edition, in which five horses were injured and one had to be put down. The injuries occurred during a steeplechase event, where horses have to jump over hedges. Michel Vandenbosch, chair of animal rights organisation Gaia, said the result was “an unacceptably high toll”.

Kardinaal Mercierstraat, near Central station in Brussels, is closed to traffic after a 4x6 metre sinkhole opened up in the road surface last week. The cause of the sinkhole is not yet known, but may be linked to heavy rainfall on Wednesday. The street is well known as the place where tour coaches pick up passengers.

The Brussels-Capital Region’s road toll on vehicles heavier than 3.5 tonnes has raised only €8.3 million of an expected €22.6 million, according to an initial evaluation. The system was introduced in all three regions in April 2016. According to the road haulage federation UPTR, the government is making more from fines from trucks without the required On-Board Unit to measure the kilometres travelled than from the toll itself.