Belgium: the government reopens theaters and cinema – LCI

Professionals in the sector had risen up, and many had even chosen to disobey. Justice proved them right, with a judgment of the Belgian Council of State which considered that the government had not demonstrated “how theaters would be particularly dangerous for health”. The day after this decision, the government finally chose to reopen all theaters and cinemas, which it had ordered to close last week, due to a renewed epidemic.

Several thousand people demonstrated last Sunday in Brussels, while a number of operators of cinemas and theaters had decided to override the ban on opening, supported by their audience. The president of the Socialist Party, a member of the government coalition, very quickly regretted a misstep. “You have to have the humility to recognize it”, Paul Magnette declared the next day: “Collectively, we messed up”.

This Tuesday, it is justice which invalidated the decision of the executive, without possibility of appeal. The Council of State, the highest Belgian court, ruled on the request of a show producer, without including cinemas, which were the subject of separate seizures. The government of Prime Minister Alexander De Croo did not wait to be challenged a second time, finally deciding the reopening of theaters, cinemas and performance halls.

The “concertation committee”, which brings together federal and regional leaders, therefore “noted” of the Council of State’s judgment, and restored “the conditions for the cultural sector that it had set at its meeting on December 3”. Among these, which include regulated reception arrangements and the need for the Belgian equivalent of the health pass, is a measure already much criticized at the beginning of the month: a “maximum of 200 spectators” is tolerated in theaters, cinemas or shows.

Very restrictive for many operators, this gauge of 200 people gives rise to misunderstanding, and a dozen professional federations have already lodged an urgent appeal with the Council of State to contest it, pointing in particular to a “lack of scientific justification”. The Belgian executive will therefore know from this Friday, December 31, if it must suffer a new snub from the justice system, in its strategy against the epidemic outbreak.