(AFP) – Donald Trump’s ambassador to Belgium takes over a Brussels park Sunday for a high-profile bash to mark America’s 250th birthday — despite local pushback and official hurdles to his more spectacular plans.
Original plans by US envoy Bill White involved fighter jet flyovers and a parachute drop for the independence anniversary event in the Cinquantenaire Park, in the heart of the city’s European district. As it turned out, Belgium’s mobility ministry did not allow the parachute drop — which it says would have required suspending air traffic to and from the capital on a peak holiday weekend. It did greenlight a flyover — but it is now set to feature “a historic aircraft” rather than combat jets, according to a draft schedule from the US embassy which also promised fireworks, a drone show and a country music festival.
Still, ambassador White promised on X it would be an “unforgettable” evening, with NATO chief Mark Rutte and Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever among several thousand guests attending. White’s boss Trump has planned a series of spectacular celebrations around the July 4 anniversary — which he kicked off Wednesday with a rally-style speech in the US capital.
American officials have been talking up the Brussels event since announcing it in April — when White promised AFP it would be “amazing, extraordinary, phenomenal” and “fantastic”. But the plans have rubbed some the wrong way.
“The park is a peaceful place that must remain open to the public,” said Philippe De Boeck, head of a group representing locals and businesses that opposed public spaces being privatised for events that bring noise and generate waste. Others have raised environmental concerns over colonies of common swifts nesting in the park. To protect the birds from excessive noise, Brussels Environment ordered that speakers be positioned at a distance and directed away from nesting sites.
© 2024 AFP
