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FM AMEMBASSY BRUSSELS
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INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEFDHN/DIA DH WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRUSSELS 000191 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE PASS EUR/WE, S/CT, AND EUR/PGI 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/05/2019 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER KISL BE
SUBJECT: BELGIUM BEGINS TO DEVELOP AN ANTI-RADICALIZATION 
PLAN 
 
BRUSSELS 00000191  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
Classified By: Acting Political Economic Counselor, 
reasons 1.4 (B) and (D). 
 
Summary and Introduction 
------------------------- 
 
¶1. (C) Poloff and Political Analysts met recently with GOB 
security, counterterrorism, and police experts to discuss 
Belgium's national anti-radicalization policy-planning and 
development process.  Belgium intends to complete by mid-2011 
an anti-radicalization white paper that integrates threat 
detection, prevention, and response to radicalization 
threats.  The GOB recently completed an operational-level 
anti-radicalization plan that focuses on threat detection. 
The Ministry of Interior's Safety and Prevention Division is 
working on the social prevention component to deal with the 
causes of radicalization, and the Belgian Federal Police are 
developing a guide for community policing that provides 
police officers the tools to recognize radicalization 
signals.  The GOB is working closely with other EU member 
states in these areas and intends to highlight 
anti-radicalization policy during its July to December 2010 
rotating EU Council Presidency.  The GOB will target 
radicalization toward violence in its Islamic, right-wing, 
left-wing, and animal rights dimensions. 
 
Policy Development Responsibility 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) Overarching anti-radicalization policy is developed at 
the operational and expert level by the College for Security 
and Intelligence.  This inter-ministerial grouping is headed 
by the Prime Minister's Security Advisor and includes members 
from the Threat Analysis Center, the Federal Police, the MFA, 
Cabinet Advisors to the Ministers of Justice and Interior, 
the State Security Service, and the Ministry of Mobility and 
Transportation.  The College reports to and advises the GOB's 
Ministerial Committee through the PM's Security Advisor. 
 
Threat Detection 
---------------- 
 
¶3. (C) The threat-detection portion of the 
anti-radicalization plan has only recently been developed. 
Threats are analyzed on several axes: the internet, 
individual preachers, ideologies, and prisons.  The State 
Security Service and Belgian Federal Police have the primary 
responsibility for gathering intelligence on these axes. 
They work closely with local community police and exchange 
information on threats and situations to improve the 
gathering of valuable information at the local level. 
 
White Paper by 2011 
------------------- 
 
¶4. (C) The GOB is working on a White Paper that includes a 
coherent strategic analysis of threats, with a focus on 
vectors of radicalization.  Originally, the idea was to 
eliminate the existing radicalization threat.  However, a new 
EU focus on prevention has led the GOB to look at EU 
initiatives and consider new domestic efforts and how they 
can be combined in practice.  The White Paper should be 
completed by the end of Belgium's EU Presidency Troika 
(Spain, Belgium, and Hungary) in mid 2011. 
Anti-radicalization plans, including prevention, are likely 
to be a focus of the Troika, and particularly the Belgian 
Presidency.  Contacts at the Threat Analysis Center said the 
Belgian Crisis Center will be coordinating projects and 
initiatives during Belgium's presidency.  Analysts are 
already looking at EU-wide anti-radicalization initiatives 
that will be active or begin in 2010, during the Spanish 
(January - June 2010) and Belgian (July-December 2010) EU 
Council rotating presidencies. 
 
Social Prevention 
----------------- 
 
¶5. (C) The Ministry of Interior's Safety and Prevention 
Directorate is working on the prevention aspects of Belgium's 
anti-radicalization plan.  This effort is led by Integral 
Safety Service Head Gunter Ceuppens.  Ceuppens told Poloff 
that the prevention plan would focus on the root causes of 
radicalization and provide a multi-disciplinary response 
including multiple actors.  The key challenge in the Belgian 
system is developing action plans that work for each of the 
three autonomous regions (Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels), 
 
BRUSSELS 00000191  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
which will have the main responsibility for carrying out 
prevention policy.  Once fully developed, this plan will 
address the following four objectives: 
 
-- broaden the existing knowledge of radicalization phenomena 
and their impact on society, and optimize information 
exchange between societal, governmental, and international 
contacts 
 
-- limit the breeding ground of frustrations which could be 
the root causes of radicalization 
 
-- increase the resilience of individuals and groups in 
society against frustration, alienation, and radicalization 
 
-- develop a coordinated system that receives possible 
signals of radicalization and polarization and then 
interprets and addresses them correctly 
 
This effort will include educational, social services, urban, 
provincial, and regional officials to answer threats with 
programming that can reduce the risk of radicalization. 
 
¶6. (U) The plan will address four types of radicalization: 
Islamic inspired, left-wing, right wing, and animal rights. 
Ceuppens stressed the GOB wanted to address radicalization 
leading to violence rather than global or philosophical 
radicalization.  The working definition of violent 
radicalization used by the GOB is:  "The increasing 
willingness of an individual or group, inspired by certain 
ideas or ideologies, to strive for profound changes in 
society and the democratic rule of law and doing so in an 
undemocratic manner and/or to support or incite others in 
doing so." 
 
¶7. (C) Security and intelligence contacts shared some GOB 
internal debates and concerns on prevention policy.  On the 
administrative level, they pointed out that the nature of the 
Belgian state, the regional governments (Flanders, Wallonia, 
and Brussels) have the competency for social outreach and 
social prevention.  This creates the possibility for 
disconnect and some variance in approach and abilities.  On 
the philosophical side, analyst contacts said there was a 
debate on how to define radical, focusing on those who intend 
violence or those extremely conservative individuals who 
oppose "democratic principles and liberal values."  They also 
questioned the validity of using "moderate" Muslim groups to 
try to moderate radicalization, arguing that you cannot 
deradicalize through individuals who lack "true-Muslim" 
credibility. 
 
Community Policing 
------------------ 
 
¶8. (U) The police force plays an important role at the 
detection level.  Local police are expected to feed potential 
threat information to the anti-terrorism cell of the Belgian 
Federal Police, headed by Police Commissar Eddy Greif.  Greif 
informed Poloff that the challenge for local police is to 
recognize radicalization signals in the same manner as 
traditional crimes such as domestic violence, etc.  He added 
that the traditional police role would simply be to lock up 
potential perpetrators; however, local and federal police 
need to play a part in the anti-radicalization effort, 
including the prevention process.  The federal police are now 
focusing on providing local officers with the tools they need 
to identify and report radicalization. 
 
¶9. (U) Jean-Pierre De Vos of the Belgian Federal Police, 
International Directorate for Police Cooperation has been in 
charge of designing the Community Policing and Prevention of 
Radicalisation (COPPRA) program.  COPPRA is a Belgian 
initiative that has become an EU-wide effort that will be 
enacted during the Belgian presidency of the EU.  Embassy 
Brussels Public Affairs Section funded a two-week 
anti-radicalization and counter-terrorism program for De Vos 
where he met with experts from the FBI and DHS, as well as 
attending the International Association of Chiefs of Police 
conference in Denver, CO.  De Vos will incorporate the 
knowledge he gained into the COPPRA manual and training 
program.  COPPRA plans to present first-line police officers 
with a broad definition of radicalization, as well as with 
the history, beliefs, practices, and potential signals of 
extremist groups.  COPPRA will provide police officers with 
the tools needed to identify signs of radicalization and 
report it to higher authorities. 
 
BRUSSELS 00000191  003.3 OF 003 
 
 
 
¶10. (U) Currently, there are 11 EU member states 
participating in the COPPRA effort: Belgium, Sweden, Finland, 
Denmark, Latvia, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Germany, the United 
Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.  The project is 
being developed by two committees: the expert committee and 
the steering committee.  Since the project,s initial meeting 
in Brussels, the expert committee has met twice, in Riga and 
Amsterdam, and they have compiled a first draft of the manual 
which will be presented to the steering committee in March. 
The final manual will be unveiled September 22 and 23, 2010 
during Belgian's EU presidency, after which the EU member 
states will conduct train-the-trainer programs in five 
geographic regions of the EU.  The trainers will then return 
to their home countries and train front-line officers 
beginning in early 2011.  The COPPRA project has received 
grant money from the EU and as part of that funding, the 
program must be evaluated after five months, at which time 
suggestions and changes can be incorporated into the manual 
and training program. 
Comment 
------- 
 
(C) The GOB is aware that Belgium has been a breeding ground 
for extremists such as Malika El-Aroud and is now actively 
developing an anti-radicalization plan as a key component of 
counter-terrorism policy.  Belgium will also make 
anti-radicalization and prevention a major theme during its 
EU Council Presidency.  Belgium is currently collaborating 
with other EU member states in both prevention and community 
policing aspects of its anti-radicalization policy.  Its 
experts and analysts are now working on approaches and plans. 
 Post suggests we engage in dialogue with Belgian 
interlocutors during the next few months in an effort to 
assist a key ally in considering effective options that may 
spread from Belgium to a wider European stage. 
 
GUTMAN