Love Letter from Brussels
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Ommegang & NATO Summit Meeting (No.39)
14/07/2016
Once again, I will introduce two different stories.
Ommegang
On both the 5th and the 7th of July, “Ommegang” took place at the Grand Place in Brussels. “Ommegang” is an archaic Dutch word that means “to walk around”. This event is held once every year and is a re-enactment of the welcoming ceremony of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his son Philip in Brussels in 1549. The actual descendants of the nobility of those days play a leading part. Dressed in 16th century costumes, they parade in front of the specially built stands at the Grand Place. First, the persons acting as Emperor Charles V and Philip, accompanied by their retainers, appear at the site on horse and carriage and take a seat on the front stand. After that, to entertain the two men, different groups wearing various historical costumes parade in front of them. At the finale, a group of artists on stilts, some as high as 3 building floors, make their appearance. The parade comes to a climax when the stilt walkers’ groups start to battle until only one man is standing. Then it all ends with fireworks. This great event, which lasted from 9pm until close to midnight, is one of the most popular events in Brussels.
This year, as part of the 150 years of Friendship between Japan and Belgium, Japan had the honor of being the guest country for this event. And on 5 July, I even had the pleasure to participate. Just before the actual parade, it is to say, at the opening, I paraded through the Grand Place with my wife together with other volunteers, both Belgian and Japanese, with costumes from the period of the Warring States and holding the Japanese flag. This is just to try to match the history behind Ommegang. We were led by a group of Belgian taiko-drum performers.
I was wearing a formal outfit of a samurai, a “Hitatare”, which actually belonged to a Belgian. We received great cheers from the audience, and we all thoroughly enjoyed this very rare experience.
Interestingly, the Ommegang takes place every year on the first Thursday of July, and on the preceding Tuesday of that same week. The reason why it doesn’t take place on Wednesday in between has to do with the weather conditions in Belgium. Even if it rains, the festival is held just like in the 16th century and the use of umbrellas is not allowed. In a country like Belgium where it could rain at any moment, chances are the costumes get soaked during the Tuesday’s parade. That is why it has been decided that on Wednesday, the next day, clothes should be left to dry. Hearing this I thought: “Well, this sounds like typically Belgian!!!”.
The NATO-summit
On 7 July, on the second day of Ommegang, I entrusted the parade to the Deputy Chief of Mission, Minister Yamada, for I had a business trip planned on the following day for Warsaw to attend the NATO Summit Meeting.
This Summit was an important opportunity for NATO to reinforce its balanced stance as to interact with the “East”, namely Russia and the Ukraine-Crimea situation, and with the “South”, which is to say the immigration problem and the terrorism threats in Afghanistan, Iraq and ISIL. Furthermore, this meeting was also a good chance, after reading the results of the British referendum on Brexit, to show that the UK remains a powerful member of NATO in the field of security and that the UK continues to be strongly committed to the strengthening of Europe’s security.
Japan was also invited to participate in two sessions: one meeting, with the NATO member countries and partner countries, on how to deal with Afghanistan, where Japan has greatly contributed to both development and security, and the other meeting on how to strengthen the interoperability between NATO and its partners.
Looking back at it, this Summit was an important meeting where various important decisions were taken.
On the topic of ‘dealing with the East’, it was decided to position multinational troops, the size of a robust battalion, on a rotational basis in each of the Baltic States and Poland. This is to steadily implement what was decided at the Wales Summit, which was held two years ago, after the Ukraine crisis occurred. It was also decided to have frequent dialogues and information exchanges with Russia to avoid misunderstandings about NATO’s intention.
Then, on the matter of ‘dealing with the South’, the expansion of support for Iraq’s capacity-building, the strengthening of NATO’s information provision to the coalition of the willing against ISIL, and cooperation with EU’s Sofia-operation to regulate the illegal immigrants in the Mediterranean have been announced, among other measures.
In addition, the provision of clearer mandate for cyber defence, the reinforcement of the Intelligence Division of NATO headquarters and a further augmentation of the defence budget were decided.
This time, moreover, a joint declaration about the strengthening of NATO and EU cooperation was signed which shows the concrete direction of future cooperation. This move was, I believe, extremely timely, especially in coping with the potential negative impacts that Brexit might bring about.
For your information, the Summit was organised in the sports stadium where the UEFA Euro 2008 took place. The Summit was held in a special venue set up on the playing field, and the lobbies for the delegations as well as the pressrooms were located in the adjacent box seat area. To me, the arrangements made by Poland, the host country, from the security to the planning of the meeting and even the food, were great.
Lastly, it was announced that the next Summit will be held next year, which is exceptional, in Brussels at the inauguration of the new NATO headquarter buildings. As a matter of fact, it seems that the US President has never visited the NATO headquarters. In that sense as well, the next year’s NATO Summit will be an important meeting, attended by the new President of the United States. I believe Japan should also start due preparation for the Summit with clear sense of objectives.