According to recent news reports, Bart de Wever, Belgian Prime Minister, has asked Kristi Noem, the head of the United States Department of Homeland Security, for help in curbing the social and public security crisis caused by cocaine flowing into Belgium’s major cities and ports from Latin America.
The move is not unwarranted. In recent years, Belgium has become one of the leading countries in Western Europe in terms of cocaine smuggling and consumption, as well as crime related to the drug trade, which not only justifies the use of the term ‘narco-state,’ which is well-known in Latin and Central America, but also a strategic approach—adopted by the second Trump administration—that seeks to dismantle drug cartels by using military means and to remove the web of terrorism, corruption, and global drug trafficking that has entangled the economy and the justice system.
The dynamics of the growth of the European drug trade can also be examined in the context of traditional market mechanisms, since the main driving force in this case is also globalization and technological development, as well as the ability of the supplier side to quickly respond to political, geographical, and social factors that threaten the stability of the supply chain. In the case of drugs, the cooperation of production, movement of goods, and sales in centralized organizations is gradually replaced by the type of division of labour characteristic of legal industries, while the necessary tools and capital necessary to coordinate the activities of logistics centres continue to remain in the hands of organized crime groups. The model for this organizational structure is that of the Latin American drug cartels that Donald Trump is trying to eliminate.
In terms of available materials, transportation routes, and supply chain actors, the European region is considered a heterogeneous, less centralized drug market. The absence of natural borders, the geographical distances that can be bridged at low cost and low risk, and the international economic integration of the continent allow Europe to function not only as a destination but also as a production and transit region for the global drug trade, whether it is psychoactive substances of natural origin or the cheaply-produced, potent, and highly pure synthetic opioids that have flooded the drug market as a result of competition with the pharmaceutical industry. Based on the profit margin between production costs and the final sale price, cocaine smuggling is one of the most profitable areas of activity for international drug trafficking networks in Europe, with ports in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany providing the import route.
Cocaine has traditionally been transported from Latin America to Europe via the Iberian Peninsula, but since the annual volume of traffic has exceeded 300 tonnes, the infrastructure of the north-western ports promises greater logistical efficiency than the previously used entry points. Despite the fact that the port of Rotterdam handles more traffic than Antwerp, it is the latter that has become a centre for cocaine smuggling due to its geographical location, lack of automation, and the quality of the goods arriving legally. The port of Antwerp, located at the mouth of the Scheldt River, is not only closer to the inland regions of Belgium than the major port cities of the Netherlands or Germany, but is also connected to the whole of Europe by road, rail, and canal, which allows for the rapid movement of goods. This also means that Antwerp specializes in receiving goods with a limited shelf life, such as fruit and vegetable cargoes, which also speeds up the processing or transit of long-awaited drug shipments, which typically arrive in banana boxes. In contrast to the port of Rotterdam, which handles an average of 15 million containers per year and is equipped with one of the most advanced logistics technologies in the world, the port of Antwerp is relatively less automated. This means that not only more grains of sand, but also more tons of cocaine are put into the machine, as the port staff, which includes members of local criminal organizations, and corrupt dock workers and customs officers, have a greater role in inspecting the incoming goods.
The fact that the capital of Flanders, and with it the whole of Belgium, is increasingly becoming a European hub for international drug trafficking means that violent or armed conflicts related to drug distribution and consumption are now commonplace in some parts of Antwerp and Brussels. Authorities have reported around sixty shootings just in September this year in those two cities. The legal framework under which the Belgian military can perform tasks falling within the scope of police powers is still being developed but ultimately Interior Minister Bernard Quintin and the Belgian government are resolute in curbing the unprecedented wave of violence and combating criminal networks in charge of the drug market. We can only cheer this step towards a law-and-order approach to drug-trafficking that poses a serious security risk not just to Belgium, but Europe as a whole.
