Belgian Justice Minister Moves to Cut Ties with Muslim Executive Body over Foreign Influence Concerns

Vincent Van Quickenborne announced that he has initiated the procedure to withdraw the EMB’s status as the official interlocutor of the State. De facto, "we will no longer subsidize this organization (to the tune of 600,000 euros per year currently), and its role will disappear," he explained on the Dutch-speaking public radio Radio 1. According to the minister, the EMB is "not representative of all Muslims in Belgium". He also accuses the Muslim organization of ignoring calls to open up to young people, in the ongoing renewal of its governing bodies.

According to explanations from a spokesman for the minister, what prevails in this process is "a logic of mosques", that is to say that only Muslim leaders already serving in a mosque, often elderly, can claim to sit on the main governing body of the EMB. Not to mention an "ethnic" conception of responsibilities favoring Moroccan and Turkish imams. "After three or four generations (of immigrants), to still reserve the right to apply for a Turk or a Moroccan, that’s not going to work, that opens the door to interference," he deplored, noting that this approach is "really detrimental to the development of a modern Islam" in Belgium.