00:00Is Belgium too small a country to use its new fighter jets?
00:07Belgium has found itself the butt of several jokes online
00:11after various French media outlets reported that the country bought a fleet of F-35 fighter jets
00:17that it won't be able to use because its airspace is too small.
00:21The articles all begin with the same sentiment,
00:23leaning into the friendly French-Belgian rivalry
00:26by referring to a Black Belge, or Belgian joke,
00:29and noting the €5.6 billion sum that the government shelled out for 34 of the US-made jets back in 2018.
00:38But there's just one problem, according to the French articles.
00:41Being a small country, it won't have enough room to conduct any training exercises with them,
00:46as doing so would impact civil aviation.
00:49However, the jokes are making a mountain out of a molehill,
00:52according to Belgium's Defence Minister Theo Franken.
00:55Taken to X, he explained that the small size of Belgium's airspace is nothing new,
00:59and that, to make up for it, the country has been carrying out aerial training exercises
01:03both at home and abroad with other jets for years.
01:07As well as planned exercises in Belgium,
01:09he said the country is currently in talks with the Netherlands, Norway, Italy and other countries
01:14to allow its pilots to train in their airspaces,
01:17and that ultimately that's what the NATO alliance is for.
01:20He also assured that military training exercises would not affect commercial flights,
01:25and that there'd be enough room for both in Belgium's skies,
01:28despite a 700% increase in civil traffic over the country since 1980.
01:33The Cube also reached out to Virginie Floyne,
01:36senior captain at the Belgian Air Force,
01:38who confirmed much of what Franken said.
01:40She said that the situation is the same as it has always been
01:43when it comes to Belgium's military jets,
01:45and that while it's possible to perform some training exercises in the country,
01:50the solution is becoming increasingly international.
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