BRUSSELS, July 9 (Xinhua) -- With the Belgian football team playing in the World Cup semi-final game on Tuesday, and world leaders gathering for a NATO summit at which U.S. President Donald Trump will attend, the capital of Europe is to have major security measures in place.
During the NATO summit on Wednesday, Brussels will be teaming with security officers and reserved perimeters of all kind.
According to the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, figures indicate that over 2,400 policemen and nearly 1,000 soldiers will supervise the summit.
And as if that were not enough, the World Cup semi-final game between Belgium and France on Tuesday evening will be subject to intense security surveillance, given the vast crowds of people expected out that night.
"This is a very big operation for us, one of the most important for years," Van De Keere, spokesperson for the Brussels-Ixelles police, was quoted by Le Soir as saying.
The workload will begin on Tuesday at noon, with the arrival in Belgium of the first NATO delegations, on the eve of the official launch of the summit on Wednesday morning.
"It is true that we feel a certain tension in preparation for this summit," Benoit Ramacker, spokesman for the Crisis Center, told Le Soir.
"But I remind you that Belgium is used to hosting such summits. Be it the European summits or, last year, the inauguration of the new NATO headquarters. We have structures in place to respond to and react to incidents," he remarked.
The threat level will remain unchanged, still at level 2 on a scale of four. "There is no indication that would call for an increase in the threat level," Ramacker said.
The organization "Acting for Peace" has been given permission by federal authorities to gather on Wednesday for demonstrations just outside the security zone in the European Union (EU) quarter.
