New Belgian passports pay homage to country’s famous comics

A redesign of the Belgian passport scheduled for release on 7 February will pay homage to the country’s famous comics, including Tintin, Blake & Mortimer and the Smurfs. 

The makeover also includes twice as many security features as the current passport, and the price charged by the foreign affairs department (€65 for adults, €35 for children) will remain unchanged - although each municipality is free to set a higher price.

Previous editions of the passport date back to 2008 and feature illustrations of Belgian architecture, but the new double-sided pages are devoted to scenes featuring the iconic strips’ beloved heroes. 

“We have chosen a design that represents our country, its arts and its culture,” said foreign minister Sophie Wilmès “with "a touch of talent, expertise, humility and humour.”

Some of the characters making appearances on the pages of the new passports include Blake & Mortimer, the Smurfs, Natacha, the Marsupilami, Bob and Bobette, Boule and Bill, Lucky Luke, Spirou and Fantasio and Largo Winch. Tintin's rocket in Objectif Lune is featured on the front page. 

In order to bring to fruition the “young, modern and artistic” theme, as the head of the travel documents and identity directorate at the foreign ministry, Dominique Bulcke, described it, publishers and copyright holders of 17 Belgian comic book series were approached and often responded "with enthusiasm".

“Belgium is in fifth place out of 90 of the most powerful passports in the world,” Wilmès said, adding that the newest edition is even more secure: the current passport has 24 security features, while the new one has 48.

Authorities will not reveal the full details of the increased security, but Fabian Klinsport, central officer for fraud control at the federal police, said the 48 security elements “combine and reinforce each other”.

The personal data fields on the various pages of the passport are multiplied to make it more difficult for counterfeiters, and the passport number now consists of two letters and seven digits, instead of two letters and six digits. 

The data page - the one with the holder's black and white photo - is rigid and made of the same polycarbonate material used for the eID card. There is also no longer a transparent decoding foil, because the decoding filter is now integrated into the data page. The chip is also integrated in the data page and is no longer in the back cover.

New to the front of the data page is a barcode, which contains, among other things, the personal data of the passport holder. The photo on the data page has multiple perforations whose angles are different in order to make falsification more difficult.

Even the cartoon elements in the passport pages contain security features: for example, a reference to the author of the cartoon can be seen with a magnifying glass for each drawing. 

The passport is valid for seven years for adults, and five years for minors.