While the house bonus ( woonbonus ), or mortgage tax relief, will be reduced in Flanders in 2015, the tax incentive will remain in Brussels through 2017. In this way the city’s new government hopes to encourage more people to move to the Brussels-Capital Region, De Standaard reported. Many Flemings...

Flanders’ minister-president Geert Bourgeois and budget minister Annemie Turtelboom have been asked to return from the summer holiday break early to explain their proposed budget cuts in the Flemish Parliament. Parliament speaker Jan Peumans has ordered a special committee session on Thursday...

Belgians have responded en masse to the call to buy more Belgian products, such as pork and pears, after they were included in Russia’s food import ban last week. Since then pear sales have doubled, reports the Limburg Fruitveiling in Het Belang van Limburg and Gazet van Antwerpen . "Last week...

Yesterday the head of the Belgian army, General Gerard Van Caelenberge made a surprise visit to the Belgian soldiers serving in Afghanistan, De Standaard reported. He followed up the visit with the announcement that Belgium's F-16 mission in Kandahar is due to finish at the end of this year. There...

Secondary school graduates who admit to delinquency in their past when applying for jobs see their chances of success sharply diminished, according to research from the Ghent University. Economists Stijn Baert and Elsy Verhofstadt sent out nearly 1,000 fictional letters of application for existing...

The number of passengers travelling through Brussels Airport so far this year increased by about 6,000 per day compared to the same period in 2013. The 5% increase in passengers makes this a record year for the airport and should lead to significant job creation, report Het Laatste Nieuws and De...

Brussels-based supermarket chain Delhaize suffered an unexpected loss of €45 million in the second quarter of the year, mostly due to problems with the group’s operations in Serbia, the company reported. Delhaize’s problems in Serbia stem from the country’s economic instability, with negative...

The Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels plans to demolish part of the building it occupies on Miniemenstraat and undergo a remodel, the board announced at the weekend. The museum is scheduled to open again on September 14; it has been closed since the attack on May 24, when an armed man killed...

A plane en route from Brussels to Istanbul on Saturday made an emergency landing in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. It was feared that there might be explosives on board. An unattended laptop was the cause of suspicion. The laptop found on the Turkish Airlines flight appeared to belong to none of...

Last year, 126 of the 1,800 people over the age of 65 who participated in a driving test failed the test and had to hand in their license, or about 7 to 8%, writes De Tijd , according to the annual report of the Belgian Institute for Road Safety (BIVV). The driving test, which consists of...