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Belgium Joins the Global Partnership
Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade
and Development Cooperation of Belgium
June 9, 2004

An announcement will be made today at the G8 Summit in Sea Island, USA, confirming that several countries ¿ including Belgium ¿ are joining the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction. In addition to the G-8 members themselves (Germany, Canada, United States, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Japan and Russia), the following countries will belong to the partnership: Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Czech Republic, South Korea, Sweden and Switzerland.

The Global Partnership was launched at the G8 Summit in Kananaskis (Canada) in June 2002. Its aim is to strengthen international cooperation with a view to preventing weapons of mass destruction and other sensitive material from falling into the hands of terrorists.

The Global Partnership hopes to raise $20 billion over the next ten years in order to meet this aim. These resources will be used to finance specific projects in various areas: securing the reduction of stocks of sensitive nuclear material, destruction of chemical weapons reserves, decommissioning of nuclear submarines, redeployment of scientists who used to work on programmes studying weapons of mass destruction, and so forth.

Belgium fully supports the objectives of the Global Partnership and, via its active participation, hopes to express Belgium's keen interest in a credible and strong non-proliferation policy. The proliferation of WMDs, particularly in combination with terrorist acts, poses a serious threat to global security and peace. The UN Security Council specifically mentions this in its Resolution 1540, which was unanimously adopted on 28 April. The European Union is also making this a priority.

Belgian involvement in the Global Partnership and its recent decision to support the Proliferation Security Initiative (interception of the illegal transfer of WMDs) illustrate Belgium's desire to contribute effectively to the international fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.