The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Belgian transportation minister resigns
Fallout continues from terrorist attacks in March.
Jacqueline Galant is the highestlevel official to lose a job as a result of the March 22 terror attacks.
LONDON — Belgium’s transportation minister resigned Friday after the publication of leaked reports from the European Commission warning of security deficiencies at Brussels Airport, the site of two deadly terrorist bombings on March 22.
The minister, Jacqueline Galant, is the highest-level Belgian official to lose her job as a result of the attacks, which left 32 people dead, along with three attackers. The country’s interior and justice ministers offered their resignations shortly after the assaults, acknowledging lapses in intelligence sharing and law enforcement, but Prime Minister Charles Michel asked them to stay.
On Friday, Michel said that King Philippe had accepted Galant’s resignation. He said she had “undertaken several bold reforms,” and thanked her for her service.
Galant came under heavy criticism this week, with opposition lawmakers demanding that she go. The tipping point may have come Thursday, when Laurent Ledoux, the president of the Federal Public Service for Mobility and Transport, resigned, saying he could no longer work for her.
On Thursday night, Ledoux, a civil servant, supplied documents to the state broadcaster, RTBF, which appeared to show that Galant had been notified of security problems at Brussels Airport, which was targeted along with the Maelbeek subway station.
He openly accused Michel and Galant of misleading the public by not acknowledging they knew about the reports.
The documents Ledoux disclosed showed that in February, he asked for more employees and resources to tighten checks at Belgian airports, seeking a share of the $450 million that the Belgian government had pledged after the terrorist attacks in and around Paris on Nov. 13, which killed 130 people. Ledoux said that Galant “systematically” disregarded his request.
He also criticized Belgocontrol, the country’s air traffic control agency, whose staff members went on strike shortly after the airport reopened following the attacks to protest plans to raise the age at which employees may retire with pensions.