Updated: 1 July 2026, 00:00 UTC. BELGIUM, Wednesday 1 July 2026: A new thunderstorm zone has crossed parts of the country, with Het Nieuwsblad reporting hailstones as large as golf balls and festivalgoers suffering injuries. The Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium says its thunderstorm warning scale treats 3-5 cm hail as an orange-level risk and hail above 5 cm as a red-level risk.
Updated 26 June 2026, 12:00 UTC. BRUSSELS, 26 June 2026: After the hagelbuien vorig weekend, HLN/VTM Nieuws has put household insurance back in focus as Belgian residents prepare for more summer thunderstorms. The practical question is simple: whether a home, car and belongings are goed verzekerd komende stormen. Belgium's financial information service Wikifin says fire insurance is the standard policy for damage to homes and contents, while Assuralia says storm and hail damage is part of the ordinary cover in many household policies. For cars, Belgian consumer guidance points to omnium cover: basic civil-liability motor insurance does not pay for hail damage to the insured vehicle itself.
Updated 23 June 2026: A fire broke out on Tuesday, 23 June 2026, at a fuel trader in Wallonia, with smoke visible from Flanders, Het Nieuwsblad reported from its Flemish Brabant regional desk. The report placed the Flemish-side visibility in the Pepingen area. Belgium Pulse has not found an accessible official incident update confirming the cause, injuries or environmental impact at publication time.
Belgium's federal government has decided to remove the civil-liability shield that has long limited lawsuits against asbestos companies once victims receive compensation from the Asbestos Fund, according to the De Tijd lead. The change would shift Belgium's asbestos policy from a mainly no-fault compensation model toward a mixed system: faster statutory payments would remain available, while victims and relatives could still seek damages from companies they argue were responsible. The exact legal text, parliamentary timetable and scope still need publication before the practical effect is clear. The issue is politically sensitive because academic and medical literature on asbestos latency shows disease often appears decades after exposure, and because Belgian cases have involved both workplace and neighbourhood exposure around former production sites. Biographical sources state the reform revives a debate that contributed to Valerie Van Peel's 2022 withdrawal from frontline federal politics after her earlier asbestos-victim proposal failed to pass.