A man places a flower under a memorial plaque inside the departure terminal during a commemorative event on the first anniversary of the Brussels terrorist attacks at Brussels Airport in Brussels, Belgium, March 22, 2017. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)
By Grandesso Federico
BRUSSELS, March 22 (Xinhua) -- "If there is a positive evolution in Belgium, it is that we have now far more than before a security culture," a senior Belgian official told Xinhua on Wednesday.
On March 22 of 2016, two separate terror attacks hit Brussels airport and the city's Metro system, which left 32 dead (excluding three terrorists) and 320 others wounded.
On Wednesday, Brussels hosted several commemoration ceremonies on Wednesday, for the first anniversary of the terror attacks. The bombings had tremendously impacted Belgium's political and social agenda, placing security as the top priority.
"People are aware that security and investment in security is worthwhile," Jan Jambon, Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Security and Home Affairs told Xinhua.
"This is really a turnaround for Belgium. We decided a package of 30 measures and the government allocated a budget like never before, (at) more than 1 billion Euros until now," Jambon said.
"Now we are working to combine human forces and technology implementing in our airports. For example, in Zaventem (airport) we have a network of intelligent and PR cameras", the Minister said.
"What we learned from Tel Aviv Airport (is to) train police officers in behavior detection so they look at people behavior and if they see something suspicious, they put people aside and do an investigation," he explained.
"We are now putting in place face recognition cameras so the technology is going together with human power. Once implemented it in the airports, we will also extend it in the big international railway stations," he said.
On railway security, Jambon clarified that after the EU directive the authorities is now implementing the Passenger Name Record system (PNR).
Belgium has an agreement with the countries where it has an international train connection -- Britain, France, the Netherlands -- to implement the PNR system on railways Thalys and Eurostar, he said.
Asked on how to eradicate extremism, Jambon said, "We have to sell our own values; we let the door open to ISIS with their proposals. We have to be more convinced in presenting our own values and chances to youngsters who are maybe open for ISIS ideology.
"In the past, we didn't do enough efforts on this. Now there is a complete change, because we are aware of our own values and our system," the minister explained.
On cross-border cooperation against terrorism, Jambon said that there has been much progress on collaboration at EU level, on such things as exchanging data and border control.
Belgium also cooperated with big internet companies like Facebook to have hate preaching sites out from internet. "There is a good collaboration now finally with these companies," Jambon said.
He also expressed worries over how to deal with the 3,000 to 5,000 European ISIS militants still fighting in the Middle East once the ISIS was defeated.
"We, together with all EU intelligence services, are monitoring the situation," Jambon said.
"We know who is in Syria... I'm confident that when they will move again, we can catch them," the Minister added.
