Belgian Foreign Minister, Maxime Prévot, announced that official directives have been issued to his technical and operational team to immediately begin drafting the necessary procedures and technical arrangements, in preparation for taking a comprehensive legal and sovereign decision to diplomatically recognize the State of Palestine. The Minister explained in statements reported by Belgian media sources that this move comes to complete the procedural and field frameworks that precede the official announcement, stressing that the issue is now strongly on the executive discussion table in the country.
Regarding the timeline for this decision, Prévot indicated that he cannot definitively confirm whether the government will be able to complete all required documents before the cabinet meeting scheduled for next Friday. However, the Minister stressed that the current political direction is moving towards resolving this issue very soon, as the Belgian Foreign Ministry seeks to ensure that the step is based on solid legal foundations consistent with Brussels' international commitments.
For its part, the legislative authority has entered the line of developments, as the chairwoman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Belgian House of Representatives, Els Van Hoof, demanded that the government respect the political pledges made within the ruling coalition last summer. Van Hoof affirmed that previous political agreements were clear and explicit regarding activating the recognition of the State of Palestine once the conditions agreed upon between the political partners were met, considering that the current move is a natural entitlement of those understandings.
This diplomatic movement comes as a continuation of what the Belgian government announced last September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York, where Brussels kept its intention to recognize despite legal obstacles. The main obstacle was the absence of the necessary royal decree to bring the decision into actual effect, which the current technical procedures seek to overcome and place within its correct legislative framework.
Belgian Prime Minister, Bart De Wever, had previously set a number of political conditions for full legal recognition, including the necessity of releasing detainees and changing the political reality in the Gaza Strip to ensure disarmament. However, increasing internal pressures and the escalating pace of events in the Palestinian territories brought the recognition file to the forefront again, amid a desire from parties within the government to accelerate diplomatic steps regardless of long-term field complexities.
The European continent is witnessing a growing wave of recognitions of the State of Palestine, driven by the worsening humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the increasing settler attacks in the West Bank. After Spain, Ireland, and Norway recognized in 2024, major international powers such as France, Britain, Canada, and Australia joined this path in 2025, which put the Belgian government before a political entitlement to keep pace with this shift in European foreign policy towards the Palestinian issue.
I directed my operational team to proceed with taking the necessary measures and technical arrangements in preparation for taking a comprehensive legal decision regarding the diplomatic recognition of the State of Palestine.
שתף את דעתך
Belgium begins formal legal procedures to recognize the State of Palestine