Tag Archives: Brussels

‘No whistling, just ticking’: EU pushes on Brexit talks

European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michael Barnier addresses a news conference at the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, July 12, 2017. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

By Alastair Macdonald and Robert-Jan Bartunek

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The EU’s negotiator pressed Britain on Wednesday to offer more post-Brexit rights to European expats and accept it will pay a hefty sum on leaving if it wants a quick start to talks on a future trading relationship.

Michel Barnier, who holds a first full round of talks next week, betrayed impatience with London during a Brussels news conference. Britain had yet to respond to detailed proposals from him on many issues, he said, and had fallen short on what it has offered on citizens’ rights, as well as on what it owes.

Asked his view on Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s remark on Tuesday that Brussels could “go whistle” if it thought Britain would pay what Johnson called “extortionate” demands, Barnier showed no desire to join in any cross-Channel banter:

“I’m not hearing any whistling, just the clock ticking,” the Frenchman said, echoing his refrain of the past year that time is tight to conclude terms for an exit in March 2019 that can limit disruption for businesses and millions of people.

Barnier said he wants detailed proposals from the British next week to match those made by the EU on issues they want settled in a withdrawal treaty.

These include the rights of expats left on either side of a new EU-UK border, a methodology for calculating how much Britain will owe to cover commitments to the EU and how to manage the new border, notably on Ireland.

Only if there is progress on all three of these would EU leaders agree to open negotiations on a future free trade deal.

For now, however, 3 million Europeans in Britain would have fewer rights under London’s proposal than Britons on the continent, notably in the matter of being able to bring in relatives, he said. And those rights in Britain would not be guaranteed by the treaty or ultimately by the EU’s judges in Luxembourg.

NEGOTIATING POSITIONS

Even some EU governments concede that the demand for much of the relations between Britain and the bloc to be under ultimate scrutiny by the European Court of Justice – anathema to many of those who voted for Brexit a year ago – is a “maximalist” position and may have to be moderated in negotiations.

An early indication of how far apart the two sides really are will come from Monday, when British officials are due in Brussels for the first of four, week-long, monthly rounds of negotiations which they hope can show enough progress to see EU leaders agree at a summit in mid-October to open trade talks.

Barnier urged London to be clear on its willingness to pay a bill, which the EU executive have put at potentially 60 billion euros ($70 billion), if it wants to win the Union’s trust.

He dismissed suggestions from Brexit supporters that the EU was holding Britain to “ransom” and stressed that he was open to negotiating the amount “line by line” but first the British had clearly to take responsibility for their share of EU budgets.

“I cannot imagine that a very great country like the United Kingdom is not a country that takes responsibility,” he said.

In a sign of the domestic dramas that have delayed Britain’s response, three leaders will separately see Barnier on Thursday: the first ministers of Wales, which backed Brexit, and Scotland, which did not, as well as opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn.

With May hobbled by losses in a miscued snap election last month, Corbyn’s Labour party and the devolved governments are pushing her to modify her Brexit plans – though Barnier stressed he would only be negotiating with British ministers.

(Additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio and Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Abortive Brussels attack could have been much worse: PM

Belgian soldiers patrol inside Brussels central railway station after a suicide bomber was shot dead by troops in Brussels, Belgium, June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

By Philip Blenkinsop and Charlotte Steenackers

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A suitcase bomb packed with nails and gas bottles could have caused heavy casualties, Belgium’s prime minister said on Wednesday, a day after a soldier shot dead a Moroccan national attempting an attack on Brussels’ central station.

“We have avoided an attack that could have been a great deal worse,” Charles Michel told reporters after a national security council meeting following Tuesday evening’s incident, in which no one else was hurt.

However, no further threat was seen as imminent and the public alert level was left unchanged.

A counter-terrorism prosecutor named the dead man only by his initials, O.Z. He was a 36-year-old Moroccan citizen who lived in the Brussels borough of Molenbeek and had not been suspected of militant links. He set off his bomb on a crowded station concourse below ground at 8:44 p.m. (2.44 p.m. ET).

Walking up to a group of passengers, prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt said, “he grabbed his suitcase, while shouting and causing a partial explosion. Fortunately, nobody was hurt.”

The suitcase, later found to contain nails and gas bottles, caught fire and then exploded a second time more violently as the man ran downstairs to the platforms.

He then ran back up to the concourse where commuters had been milling around and rushed toward a soldier shouting “Allahu akbar” — God is greater, in Arabic. The soldier, part of a routine patrol, shot him several times. Bomb disposal experts checked the body and found he was not carrying more explosives.

Police raided the man’s home overnight, Van Der Sypt said.

Molenbeek, an impoverished borough with a big Moroccan Muslim population just across Brussels’ industrial canal from its historic center, gained notoriety after an Islamic State cell based there mounted suicide attacks on Paris in November 2015 that killed 130 people. Associates of that group attacked Brussels itself four months later, killing 32 people.

Belgian policemen get out of a house after searching it, following yesterday's attack, in Brussels, Belgium June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Vidal

Belgian policemen get out of a house after searching it, following yesterday’s attack, in Brussels, Belgium June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Vidal

“WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED”

Prime Minister Michel insisted the country, which has been the most fertile European recruiting ground for Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, would not bow to threats that have seen combat troops become a permanent fixture at public spaces in Brussels.

“We will not let ourselves be intimidated,” Michel said. “We will go on living our lives as normal.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility and no word on how investigations are progressing into whether the man had acted alone or had help, and into any links to radical groups.

The Belgian capital, home to the headquarters of NATO and the European Union, took a heavy hit to its tourist industry last year. Visitors and residents out enjoying a hot summer’s evening on the ornate Renaissance town square, the Grand Place, close to Central Station were cleared quickly away by police.

Smoke billowed through the elegant 1930s marble hallways of the station, sending people fleeing to the surface, well aware of last year’s attacks at Brussels airport and on the metro, as well as of a string of Islamic State-inspired assaults in France, Germany, Sweden and Britain.

“Such isolated acts will continue in Brussels, in Paris and elsewhere. It’s inevitable,” Brussels security consultant Claude Moniquet, a former French agent, told broadcaster RTL.

With Islamic State under pressure in Syria, he said, attacks in Europe may increase, though many would be by “amateurs”.

Witness Nicolas Van Herrewegen, a rail worker, told Reuters: “He was talking about the jihadists and all that and then at some point he shouted: ‘Allahu akbar’ and blew up the little suitcase he had next to him. People just took off.”

Remy Bonnaffe, a 23-year-old lawyer who was waiting for a train home, photographed the flaming suitcase before the second blast, followed by gunfire, prompted him to run.

“I think we had some luck tonight,” he told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Clement Rossignol, Francesco Guarascio, Jan Strupczewski, Elizabeth Miles and Alastair Macdonald; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Good atmosphere but nothing new in EU talks with Erdogan, sources say

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during a graduation ceremony at an Imam Hatip religious school association in Istanbul, Turkey, May 26, 2017.

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Talks last week between the heads of European Union institutions and Turkey’s president, Tayyip Erdogan, were held in a “good atmosphere” but produced no new agreements, officials in Brussels said, playing down comments by the Turkish leader.

Tensions between Turkey and the EU run high over rights and security issues, but the bloc depends on the help of NATO ally Ankara on migration and the conflict in Syria.

After meeting European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker last week in Brussels, Erdogan was quoted as saying he had been presented with a new 12-month timetable for renewing ties.

But senior EU officials voiced caution and some scepticism, saying no formal deadlines were set. The EU has a list of mid- and high-level meetings it hopes to hold with Turkey this year, they said, but any improvement in bilateral ties would depend on Erdogan’s resolving at least some of many points of contention.

They include the EU’s worry that Turkey’s anti-terror laws are too broad and used to persecute Erdogan critics, as demonstrated in Ankara’s sweeping security crackdown following a botched coup almost a year ago.

Other concerns relate to the treatment of the Kurds, the media and academics, as well as Erdogan moving to assume even more powers following an April referendum.

The pre-referendum campaign produced new spats with EU members Germany and the Netherlands, whose authorities Erdogan likened to Nazis when they had prevented Turkish politicians from campaigning in their countries.

Despite the often harsh rhetoric, senior EU officials said the atmosphere of the meeting was “good” and “constructive”.

“It was definitely not hostile, but both sides pretty much restated their well-known positions,” one of the sources said.

Turkey complains about slow progress in its stalled EU accession talks, discussions on visa-free travel for Turks to the EU and disbursement of EU funds to Syrian refugees living in Turkey.

The bloc says Erdogan must first address concerns over human rights and rule of law, and should work with the Council of Europe – a European rights watchdog of which Turkey is a member – on that..

The EU says progress in talks over reuniting the ethnically split Cyprus is also key to unlocking other area, including ideas to beef up an existing customs union between Turkey and the EU.

Erdogan has suggested Turkey could hold a referendum on continuing EU accession talks, and possibly another on reinstating the death penalty. Restoring capital punishment would end Turkey’s bid to join the EU.

EU leaders will discuss their ties and especially their cooperation with Turkey on migration when in Brussels on June 22-23. Calls from the European Parliament to formally halt Turkey’s accession talks have so far not reached critical mass.

“We have no choice,” one of the sources said when asked if the EU was looking to working more with Turkey after the top-level talks with Erdogan.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, editing by Larry King)

EU tries to contain East-West schism as Brexit bites

European and national flags fly outside the European Parliament while European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker presents a white paper on options for shoring up unity once Britain launches its withdrawal process, in Brussels, Belgium, March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Yves Herman

By Alastair Macdonald

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – As Britain hands the European Union its formal notice to quit this month, Brussels is resigned to losing part of the EU’s western flank but is increasingly stressed that upset in the east is pulling the survivors further apart.

Poland, the biggest of the ex-communist eastern states to join after the Cold War, has picked a fight over the fairly minor matter of who chairs EU summits. Symptomatic of a mounting east-west friction, the spat will overshadow a meeting this week that was meant to forge post-Brexit unity.

Brexit has not created that friction but made it worse, as leaders struggle to quell popular disaffection with the EU that is by no means confined to Britain. Westerners are talking up faster integration, even if that means leaving nationalistic easterners behind in a “multispeed Europe”.

When Chancellor Angela Merkel, raised in East Germany and a key defender of eastern allies, joined her French, Italian and Spanish peers at Versailles on Monday to ram home a message that unless some states press ahead the EU will stall and break, Polish ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski hit right back.

“The decisions made in … Versailles … aim to reinforce the process of European Union disintegration which has started with Brexit,” he said on Tuesday.

Kaczynski will not be in Brussels for Thursday’s summit but his prime minister, Beata Szydlo, will give voice to his refusal to endorse the reappointment of her centrist predecessor Donald Tusk as European Council president. Tusk and the right-wing Kaczynski are old and bitter rivals in Polish politics.

BREXIT HOLE

Brexit deprives the easterners, unwilling to see diktat from Brussels or Berlin replace rule from Moscow, of their strongest ally against EU centralization and euro zone domination.

It also leaves a big hole in the EU budget for paying the subsidies that fund a large slice of public spending in the east — cash that has kept voters there sold on EU membership and which Brussels fears London may now use to court eastern favor and divide the EU to extract better Brexit terms.

On Friday, leaders will work on plans for a March 25 summit in Rome where they hope to use 60th anniversary celebrations of the bloc’s founding treaty to pledge a new unity after Brexit.

Yet the road to Rome has been marked with division over the push by founding powers and the EU executive led by Jean-Claude Juncker for more differentiated EU integration.

“The key message of Rome must be the unity of the 27,” said a senior EU official involved in looking for compromises to ease the friction. “The political context of Brexit should not be a multispeed Europe. That would be completely out of tune.”

Neither side is pushing for a split and all insist they must pull together against challenges from Russia and uncertainty about U.S. support under President Donald Trump. For that reason, officials say, the words to come out of the Brussels and Rome summits will stress unity and soft-pedal the differences.

FRICTION GROWING

But east-west friction has heated up in the past two years.

There are rows over eastern reluctance to take in Syrian refugees and Kaczynski’s new policies that Brussels calls undemocratic. New border controls to curb migrants inside the passport-free Schengen zone have fueled eastern fears of losing travel freedoms cherished since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

And there is a brewing crisis over what eastern leaders see as hypocritical protectionism inside the EU single market by western governments trying to impose their own national minimum wages on enterprising — and cheap — eastern “posted workers”, who offer services like trucking and construction in the west.

Last week Poland and its allies demanded Brussels crack down on the “double standards” of firms that offer lower quality versions of western food brands in eastern markets.

It is not just outspoken Poland and Hungary who fret at fragmentation. The worry runs from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Eastern diplomats fear a new gap could open up along the old Iron Curtain that may never close, especially if the rich states play up to voters and refuse to fill the EU’s Brexit budget gap.

Prime Minister Robert Fico told Slovakia’s parliament on Wednesday he was skeptical of the Union’s future once Britain leaves in 2019.

“I’m afraid the EU will be divided by the money issue after 2020…In the spirit of Trump’s ‘America first’, we can expect to hear ‘Germany first’, ‘France first’ etc.”

Noting that current EU arrangements already allow for states to deepen their cooperation — the euro is just one of many examples — a senior diplomat from an eastern member state said he was suspicious of assurances from Merkel and others that any new moves would always be open to any member state to join.

“The only new thing they can mean is that this has changed,” he said. “They are saying ‘No, you are not welcome any more’.

“This is very dangerous.”

(Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly and Justyna Pawlak in Warsaw and Tatiana Jancarikova in Bratislava; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Refugees languish in Greek limbo as alarm grows in Brussels

Anis, 4, from Syria (C) is bathed by his mother, as others wash their clothes and shoes, at the Souda municipality-run camp for refugees and migrants on the island of Chios, Greece

By Karolina Tagaris

ATHENS (Reuters) – Seven months after the European Union and Turkey struck an agreement to turn back the tide of Syrians fleeing west, no refugees have been sent back from Greece, and Brussels is losing its patience as overcrowded camps grow violent.

The agreement reached in March was designed to reduce the number of migrants crossing into Europe from Turkey, after more than a million people arrived in Europe last year, most reaching Greek islands by boat and continuing by land to Germany.

Under the deal, the European Union declared Turkey “a safe third country”, meaning those who make the crossing can be returned there, even if found to have fled Syria or other countries as refugees deserving protection. Turkey agreed to take them back, in return for a range of EU concessions.

At around the same time, Balkan countries along the land route north closed their borders, so that migrants who once poured across Greece to reach other parts of Europe are now trapped there and prevented from pressing on.

For the most part, the goal of stemming the tide has been achieved so far. Only 17,000 people, around half of them Syrians, have made the hazardous sea crossing from Turkey since the deal was signed, a tiny fraction of hundreds of thousands that arrived the previous year to pass through Greece.

But for the deal to continue to work for the longer term, European officials and experts say refugees will have to be sent back to Turkey. As long as those crossing are still able to stay in Greece, there is a risk that more will decide to come.

“There’s the deterrence effect. If it’s proven that people are being turned back, it can force people to think twice about even trying,” said James Ker-Lindsay, an expert on southern Europe at the London School of Economics.

Only about 700 people who arrived since the deal was signed – just four percent of the total – have gone back to Turkey, and none was ordered back after being recognized as a refugee.

Of those who returned, most were economic migrants from countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh who left without seeking asylum in Greece. Around 70 people who did claim asylum in Greece gave up on the process and asked to leave before it was over. The rest are still in Greece, prey for smugglers who offer to take them to northern Europe.

Some 61,000 migrants are still scattered across Greece, including 15,900 in overcrowded island camps that have grown violent as the delays mount, with around 2,500 more arriving each month. The camps are now holding three times as many people as they held when the deal was signed, and twice as many as they were built for.

The EU blames the delays on Greek inefficiency.

“The goal of ensuring returns … has mostly been hampered by the slow pace of processing of asylum applications at first instance by the Greek Asylum Service and of processing of appeals by the newly-established Greek Appeals Authority,” the EU Commission said in a progress report.

“Further efforts are urgently needed by the Greek administration to build a substantially increased and sustained capacity to return arriving migrants, which is considered to be the key deterrent factor for irregular migrants and smugglers.”

Athens says it is simply overwhelmed and cannot speed up the painstaking process of evaluating claims. It has asked the EU to send more staff, but European officials say that would not help without more effort from Greece to improve its system.

Interviews with asylum-seekers and officials involved in the process suggest Greek staff are indeed stretched, but red tape, inefficiency, the lack of a unified plan across refugee camps and a lengthy appeals process are also to blame.

Refugees and migrants line up for food distribution at the Moria migrant camp on the island of Lesbos, Greece

Refugees and migrants line up for food distribution at the Moria migrant camp on the island of Lesbos, Greece October 6, 2016. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis/File Photo

UNLUCKY

Amir, Walaa and their two young children fled from the Syrian city of Homs to Turkey and reached a beach on the Greek island of Chios in March. They say they came ashore the day before the deal with Turkey, but their arrival was not recorded by police until the next day, exposing them to the new rules.

“We were unlucky,” Walaa said, smiling weakly. Her two brothers had taken just two weeks to reach Germany from Greece before the land border was shut. Her husband Amir added: “We were in the boat and (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel and Turkey were finishing the deal.”

Their asylum case should be easier to process than many: they have their passports and do not need to prove their identity. But they are still months from an answer.

In their first weeks in Greece they were given a number: 10,624. Each day, they rose from their tent in the dusty remains of a castle moat, and walked to a notice board, looking anxiously for it.

If posted, it meant they should walk or catch a bus to the island’s main camp, a few miles (km) away, and queue there at the processing center, a few prefabricated containers arranged inside an abandoned aluminum factory.

They spent four months in the tent before their number finally was posted the first time, summoning them to a meeting to establish their identity, where authorities finally sat them down to ask for their names and fingerprints.

Six months after they arrived, they were finally told the date of their first actual interview: Dec. 6. They were finally given the right to leave the camp and relocate to Athens while they wait for their case to be heard. Now they live at a grimy, abandoned Athens school where smugglers roam, offering passage to northern Europe for $1,000.

“We wait. Every day we just wait. Why, I don’t know,” Walaa said, gazing at the floor. She and her husband asked that their surnames not be published to protect relatives back in Syria.

Humanitarian groups on the ground say poor coordination slows things down on the islands, a conclusion backed up by the EU Commission report, which urged Greece to develop unified management for the camps.

The camps are typically run by local municipalities or the central government, while screening and interviews are carried out primarily by officials from EU border agency Frontex and the European Asylum Support Office (EASO).

Asylum-seekers say they receive contradictory information and are confounded by a lack of interpreters. One camp used a loud-hailer to call people to appointments; if they didn’t hear it, they missed their turn.

Frontex and EASO officials go to unusual lengths to confirm an identity or check an asylum seeker’s story. Someone who has no documentation and professes to be from Syria, for example, will be asked to name streets, identify landmarks or pick out Syrian coins from a handful of different currencies.

A CRUEL BUREAUCRACY

The long waits and squalor of some camps have turned frustration into violence. On Chios and the island of Lesbos in recent days, asylum-seekers attacked EASO’s offices to protest against delays. Interviews there have yet to resume.

EASO has deployed 202 staff in Greece and has called for 100 more, but EU member states have yet to respond, EASO spokesman Jean-Pierre Schembri said. Greece has repeatedly asked for more.

The Greek legal system allows for an elaborate appeals process, which the EU says is too slow. Greece responded in June by sending more judges to replace civil servants and staff of either the U.N. refugee agency or Greek human rights commission, who had previously sat on appeals panels.

The new boards appear to be moving only slightly faster: they made 35 decisions in their first month, compared with 72 made by the old boards in the first three months of the deal, the EU Commission report said. The report did not specify what decisions had been reached.

The most contentious part of the process is determining whether those with valid asylum cases can safely be returned to Turkey, the heart of the March deal. The new appeals boards have dealt with at least three such cases as of Sept. 18, and at least one is challenging the decision at Greece’s highest court, according to the EU report.

Reuters could not find a board member willing to comment publicly on the process.

“A wrong decision might send someone back to serious harm,” said Giorgos Kosmopoulos, an Amnesty International researcher and former Greece director. “It’s about quality not quantity.”

(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels; editing by Peter Graff)

Man found wearing fake bomb belt causes security scare in jittery Brussels

closed street due to bomb threat

By Robert-Jan Bartunek and Ines Kagubare

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A man who said he was wearing a bomb belt rigged to explode by remote control caused a major scare in a Brussels commercial district on Tuesday before police found the device contained only salt and biscuits, officials said.

The Belgian capital of 1.2 million people remains on edge under a high security alert three months after three Islamic State suicide bombers blew themselves up at Brussels Airport and in a metro train, killing 32 people.

On Tuesday, Brussels police detained a man near the bustling City2 shopping center after he announced that he was strapped with explosives that would be set off remotely. The area was sealed off while bomb experts checked the man’s belt.

The man, born in 1990 and identified as J.B., had called police himself to say he had been kidnapped and forced to don an explosives belt. It proved to be a false alarm.

“J.B. is known to police, also because of mental problems,” a Brussels prosecutors spokeswoman said.

The man remained in police custody but had to be freed within 24 hours unless a judge approved a request from prosecutors to place him under formal arrest and to be examined by a psychiatrist.

In 2014 J.B. told police he had been ordered to go to Syria to join Islamist militants fighting in the civil war there, an incident that remains under investigation, prosecutors said.

Police also located a car that J.B. said had brought him to the shopping mall and questioning the owner before releasing him when it transpired that J.B. had only memorized a random number plate.

Belgium’s Crisis Centre, which oversees security measures, convened with Prime Minister Charles Michel and Interior Minister Jan Jambon present to discuss Tuesday’s incident.

(Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek and Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Paris and Brussels Attack Suspect Arrested

CCTV image made available by Belgian Police shows a suspect in the attack which took place at the Brussels international airport of Zaventem

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Mohamed Abrini, wanted over November’s Islamic State attacks in Paris, has been arrested in Brussels, Belgium’s public broadcasters said on Friday, adding that he was probably involved in last month’s Brussels bombings.

Public prosecutors confirmed in a brief statement only that police had made several arrests related to the Brussels attacks.

Abrini, a 31-year-old Belgian, was “more than likely” the “man in the hat” seen on security camera footage at Brussels airport on March 22 with two suicide bombers, VRT and RTBF said on their websites, citing unidentified sources.

If confirmed, the arrests could mark a success for Belgian security services which have faced fierce criticism at home and abroad since Brussels-based militants organized the attacks that killed 130 in Paris on Nov. 13.

They took place a day after police issued new images and detail on the “man in the hat” and follow the arrest in Brussels three weeks ago of the prime surviving suspect in those attacks.

Four days after the March 18 arrest of Salah Abdeslam, with whom Abrini was seen driving towards Paris two days before the Paris attacks, brothers Brahim and Khalid El Bakraoui and a third local man Najim Laachraoui killed 32 people at Brussels airport and on a metro line running under EU institutions.

VRT and RTBF said Abrini was probably the man disguised in heavy glasses and a floppy hat who was pictured with Brahim Bakraoui and Laachraoui moments before the other two blew themselves up at the airport.

A second suspect held on Friday was believed to be a man seen with Khalid Bakraoui at a metro station shortly before the latter blew himself up on a train on the same line downtown.

VRT named the second man as Osama Kraiem. Broadcasters said he had also been caught on CCTV buying holdalls at a downtown mall which were later used in the Brussels bombings.

Abrini was arrested in the borough of Anderlecht, VRT said, next to the western district of Molenbeek which has been at the heart of Belgium’s troubles with Islamist militants.

He had been on Europe’s most wanted list since being seen on a motorway service station CCTV video driving with Abdeslam towards Paris from Belgium in a car used two days later in the attacks in which Abdeslam’s elder brother was a suicide bomber.

The “man in the hat” left the airport shortly after the twin suicide bombings and was tracked on CCTV for several miles into the city center. On Thursday, investigators released new video footage of him and urged people to look for his discarded coat.

Wearing glasses and a hat, he had been very difficult to identify from the footage showing him pushing a laden luggage trolley alongside the two who blew themselves up with similar bags. A third bomb was later found abandoned at the airport.

(Writing by Alastair Macdonald; editing by Robert-Jan Bartunek and Angus MacSwan)

U.S. Senate Boosts Travel Security

Passengers make their way in a security checkpoint at the International JFK airport in New York

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans and Democrats in the Senate reached a deal on Thursday to boost travel security at airports in the aftermath of the Brussels attacks, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Under the deal, the source said, lawmakers agreed to amend a Federal Aviation Administration bill with provisions that would bolster the vetting of airport employees with access to secure areas and authorize the Transportation Security Administration to donate security equipment to foreign airports with direct flights to the United States.

The provisions would also order a new U.S. assessment of foreign cargo security programs, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

Lawmakers and their aides were continuing to negotiate over other security items that could also be added, including federal grant money for training state and local law enforcement to respond to emergencies involving armed attacks, the source said.

The deal is being brokered by Senator John Thune of South Dakota, Republican chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and the panel’s top Democrat, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, the source said.

In coming days, the Senate is expected to vote on the FAA authorization bill, which would renew the aviation agency’s programs through September 2017.

The House of Representatives has been considering its own FAA legislation. That bill also calls for the privatization of the U.S. air traffic control system, a measure that is not in the Senate’s legislation.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Belgian Police Seek “Man in Hat” suspect

CCTV image made available by Belgian Police shows details clothing worn by a man whom officials believe may be a suspect in the attack which took place at the Brussels international airport

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian prosecutors appealed for help in finding a man suspected of leaving a bomb at Brussels Airport on March 22, saying they were eager to find a coat he had discarded and to speak to people who saw him on his hour-long walk back into the city.

Federal prosecutors released new pictures of the suspect, dubbed the “man in the hat”, who appeared to arrive at the airport with two suicide bombers and left along with passengers after the first two bombs exploded.

In a video to accompany their appeal, investigators indicate the route the man took, out of the airport, through the nearby town of Zaventem and along a main road into the city. His last appearance on security cameras was in the district of Schaerbeek almost an hour after the bombing.

Along the way, he took off his light-colored coat and was then seen in a light blue shirt with dark patches. He was wearing a dark hat throughout.

“It is especially the coat which interests us,” prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt told a news conference, asking if anyone might have seen it along the suspect’s route.

Prosecutors also want to people to come forward who might have filmed or taken a photograph of the suspect or may be able to determine where he went.

Twin bombs at Brussels Airport and another on the city’s metro killed 32 people, excluding the suspected bombers. A controlled explosion destroyed a third bomb at the airport about six hours after the initial attack.

(Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)

U.S. frustration simmers over Belgium’s struggle with militant threat

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Shortly after last November’s attacks on Paris by a Brussels-based Islamic State cell, a top U.S. counter-terrorism official traveling in Europe wanted to visit Brussels to learn more about the investigation.

When the official tried to arrange meetings, however, his Belgian counterparts were not welcoming, according to U.S. officials familiar with the events. The Belgians indicated it was a bad time to speak to foreign officials as they were too busy with the investigation, said the officials, who asked not to be identified.

Belgian officials declined to comment on the incident.

The brush-off was one small sign of mounting U.S. frustration over Brussels’ handling of its worsening Islamic militant threat.

Concern that the small European nation’s security and intelligence officials are overwhelmed — and that its coordination with allies falls short — have again come to the fore following the Islamic State-claimed attacks on Tuesday that killed at least 31 people.

Several U.S. officials say that security cooperation has been hampered by patchy intelligence–sharing by Brussels and wide differences in the willingness of different agencies to work with foreign countries, even close allies.

One U.S. government source said that when American investigators try to contact Belgian agencies for information, they often struggle to find which agency or part of an agency might have relevant information.

Belgium has ordered a sharp increase in security budgets following the Paris attacks, despite being under steady pressure to limit its debt levels under euro zone rules. The government has promised to recruit around 2,500 more federal police, who pursue major crimes, to make up for a shortfall of close to a fifth of the full-strength force of 12,500.

It also says it thwarted a major attack in January 2015, and is eager to cooperate with European and U.S. counterparts.

“These attacks show that more coordination with the United States is clearly desirable,” Guy Rapaille, the president of the committee that provides oversight of Belgium’s security and intelligence services, told Belgium’s state broadcaster RTBF.

“But you have to remember that big powers guard their intelligence very closely.”

U.S. officials acknowledge the recent Belgian efforts to step up funding and recruitment.

Yet they say Belgian security services are outmatched by the threat in a country that, per capita, has supplied the highest number of foreign fighters to Syria of any European nation.

“They’re way behind the ball and they’re paying a terrible price,” Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told Reuters.

Asked on Wednesday whether Belgium was too complacent over the threat posed by Islamic militancy, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said:

“I want to stay clear of saying that Belgium was somehow caught by surprise or not aware. You know, we collaborate, we work with Belgium closely.”

Some U.S. counter-terrorism officials say much of the gap between Washington and Belgium — and some other European countries — is cultural. Europeans’ deeper commitment to personal privacy sometimes prevents or delays sharing of information such as travel data — that is taken for granted in the United States.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. government radically reshaped its counter-terrorism agencies. It broke down walls between law enforcement and intelligence authorities, and created new coordinating institutions such as the Director of National Intelligence and National Counterterrorism Center.

Belgium, by contrast, is a patchwork country divided between French and Dutch speakers and with multiple levels of government.

Belgian security chiefs have repeatedly complained that they cannot handle up to 900 home-grown Islamist militants, among the highest per-capita rates in Europe. Belgium does not divulge the exact number of personnel in its security services and military intelligence, but security experts say they appear under-resourced compared to European counterparts.

“Add to that the problem of two languages (French and Flemish), lack of Arabic speakers, and weak coordination between national and local government, you have a huge discrepancy between threat and response,” said former CIA official and White House advisor Bruce Riedel, now at the Brookings Institution.

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom and Jonathan Landay in Washington, Robin Emmott and Alastair Macdonald in Brussels; Writing by Warren Strobel; editing by Don Durfee and Stuart Grudgings)