By RFIPosted on 13-01-2020Modified on 13-01-2020 at 03:19
The Belgian Consulate General in Lubumbashi reopens this January 13 after two years of closure. It is therefore the continuation of the normalization of relations between Kinshasa and Brussels, a recovery which has been favored by the change of power in the DRC since January 2019. The Consul General of Lubumbashi has extensive powers over the whole of the former -province of Katanga.
It was during the state visit carried out last September by Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi in the Belgian capital that the normalization of relations between the two countries was initiated. The two parties had agreed to reopen the consulate general of the Kingdom of Belgium in Lubumbashi and that of the DRC in Antwerp.
Relations between the Congo and the former colonial power were often jagged: they were under the regime of Marshal Mobutu, and even more in the last years of the Kabila regime.
Belgium had paid a high price for demanding compliance with the Constitution from the former president and for not remaining in power indefinitely, recalls a foreign diplomat in Kinshasa, the same who talks about the closure of the Schengen House in the Congolese capital and the Belgian consulate general in Lubumbashi (the largest in the DRC), not to mention the reduction in flights by Brussels Airlines.
Since coming to power, Felix Tshisekedi, breaking away from his predecessor, had multiplied the signs of openness towards Belgium, a country with which he also maintains a special relationship and which he calls his "other Congo ”.
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