Belgium will best be able to protect itself by sending F-16 jets to Ukraine, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hadja Lahbib said in an interview with RTBF on Thursday morning.
"We have asked Defence Minister Ludivine Dedonder to provide an objective analysis with different possible scenarios to see if we can send F-16s. I think that when you are part of the 'F-16 coalition' it is the least you can do; you must be able to have objective data to make a decision that goes beyond training," she said in a radio interview on Matin Première.
Lahbib specified that she was not "for or against" the proposal for Belgium to send its reserve of older F-16 jets to Ukraine, but highlighted Belgium’s proximity to the war in Ukraine.
"When I hear that we need these planes to protect our territory, I think that the best way to protect Belgium today is to send these planes to Ukraine, which is at war and is only 2,000 kilometres from Brussels," she said.
The Minister believes that the war in Ukraine "concerns the European Union because it is the European continent which is affected" and involves "a country which aspires to be part of the European family."
The Belgian representative recently returned from a 'historic' meeting of foreign ministers in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, where ministers discussed Ukraine's EU integration. Lahbib told RTBF that the meeting’s aim was "to take stock of the different ways to help Ukraine today" and to propose recommendations related to Ukraine’s candidate status to join the EU.
"We have to look at these countries which aspire to be a part of the European Union; many were part of the former Soviet bloc, which are threatened and which have troops on their borders. How can we integrate them without weakening ourselves? By reviewing our institutional architecture, our ways of operating, the way we share the European budget," she explained.
Lahbib said that Belgium had an important role to play in this process due to its capacity to "build bridges, find compromises, and build complex architectures." To date, Belgium has committed €423.61 million in military, humanitarian and reconstruction funds for Ukraine, according to statistics from the Foreign Affairs ministry.
