Belgium investigates where millions for Brussels security went. MP claims some funded a Disneyland trip

Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin has requested a report from the authorities on what the €55 million the federal government sends to Brussels every year for security and prevention is being spent on. The impetus came from liberal MP Denis Ducarme, according to whom part of the money intended for Brussels municipalities paid for household appliances, books, garbage bags, a laundry service for people living alone, and even a trip to Disneyland. For these items, Ducarme cites high-placed sources within the administration, and they have not yet been independently confirmed. BRUZZ ↗ VRT NWS ↗ La Dernière Heure ↗

The money is a federal grant for expenses linked to European Union summits and to Brussels's role as the capital. The Brussels-Capital Region has been receiving it since 2012. Today, €35 million of it goes to police zones and €20 million to municipalities. Ducarme, an MP for the liberal Reformist Movement (MR), first raised the case on Wednesday in the newspaper La Dernière Heure and presented it in the plenary session of the Chamber of Representatives on Thursday. La Dernière Heure ↗ MR (party press release) ↗

What the inspectorate questioned years ago

Some of the objections are not new. According to letters that Ducarme studied and that the newspaper La Dernière Heure described, the Inspectorate of Finance repeatedly doubted whether some spending from the grant was related to security at all. In 2020, €828,000 of it went to the Brussels regional social housing company and three million euros to the transport operator MIVB for prevention and security projects. According to BRUZZ, part of it covered toilets at metro stations and food for homeless people. BRUZZ ↗ Bruxelles Today ↗

The biggest questions surround some three million euros for a Brussels cybersecurity centre that was never built. According to BRUZZ, more than two million of it ultimately ended up with municipalities, and the inspectorate questioned whether that complied with the grant's rules. BRUZZ ↗ Bruxelles Today ↗ VRT NWS ↗

The then head of the Brussels government, socialist Rudi Vervoort, replied to state secretary for the budget Alexia Bertrand in 2023 that it was "an accounting shift, with no effect on the amounts ultimately granted to the projects." He also announced that the region would henceforth report only the breakdown of €35 million for police and €20 million for municipalities. After that, the federal government could no longer see in detail where the money went. Bruxelles Today ↗ VRT NWS ↗

Minister: "I have no visibility into the grant"

Quintin, who belongs to the same party as Ducarme, explained in the chamber that since 2017 the money has been a block grant rather than an earmarked subsidy, so the federal government has no direct view of individual expenditures. "As a result, I unfortunately have no direct view of how those funds are used. I regret that. I find it particularly unfortunate, annoying and sometimes even outrageous," he said, according to BRUZZ. BRUZZ ↗ MR (party press release) ↗

According to Quintin, his predecessor Annelies Verlinden, now minister of justice, had already tried to get an overview, but she too failed to get an answer from Vervoort. "Money for police and security must go to police and security. That also applies to the funds Brussels receives for the European summits. I am not taking part in Brussels-bashing. This principle applies everywhere and to everyone," he added. BRUZZ ↗

The prime minister's party also wants an audit

According to La Dernière Heure, Brussels officials often claim they lack the money to fight drug-trade-related violence. N-VA, the prime minister's party, seizes on that as it calls for an audit. "While we hear from the PS like clockwork that not enough money goes to tackling security in Brussels, it turns out that a trip to Disneyland is being organised with federal money. That is staggering," the party's MP Maaike De Vreese told BRUZZ. La Dernière Heure ↗ BRUZZ ↗

The opposition Vlaams Belang, whose MP Ortwin Depoortere chairs the chamber's interior committee, is also calling for a full audit. Ducarme wants the committee to hear officials, the Inspectorate of Finance, the Brussels agency Bruxelles Prévention & Sécurité, and the politicians responsible, and does not rule out that Brussels will have to pay the money back. Vlaams Belang (party press release) ↗ MR (party press release) ↗ VRT NWS ↗

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Who raised the case

The case was raised by MR, a long-standing rival of the socialist PS, to which Vervoort belongs. The documented cases from the inspectorate's letters fall within the years when he led the region. Since February 2026, Boris Dilliès of MR has headed the Brussels government. Ducarme himself acknowledges, however, that the preceding federal government, in which his party also sat, may have failed as well. We found no fresh response from the Brussels government, the socialists, or the municipalities concerned in reports available as of September 18. On the Brussels side, only Vervoort's 2023 statement is being cited so far. VRT NWS ↗ Bruxelles Today ↗

*Illustrative photo: a Belgian federal police vehicle on Schuman Square in the European Quarter of Brussels, July 2026. Author: Tohaomg / Wikimedia Commons, CC0.*