The Belgian federal government's core Cabinet faced a dispute on Saturday over whether to grant visas to 13 Palestinian scholarship students, Belga news agency reported Sunday.
The Cabinet met to discuss budgetary measures, during which the issue of granting visas to Palestinian students from Gaza who had received scholarships to study at Belgian universities came to the fore.
The French-speaking liberal MR was reportedly the only political party to refuse a compromise Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot had reached earlier with Asylum and Migration Minister Anneleen Van Bossuyt.
The compromise stipulated that the students could not use their arrival in Belgium as grounds to seek asylum or apply for family reunification.
It also established a task force led by Van Bossuyt to explore ways to accelerate and improve the effectiveness of procedures for returning people residing illegally in the country.
"I had agreed to discuss proposals within that framework and, after examining them, to support certain proposals if they were effective, proportionate and lawful," Prevot reportedly said.
While the core Cabinet still had to approve the deal, Prevot said in a news release seen by Belga that MR was the only coalition partner to block it, describing the move as "blackmail."
"The obstruction is a human disgrace and politically regrettable. We are talking about 13 young people who have been awarded scholarships to continue their studies at our universities," Prevot said.
He warned that the students' future must not be used as "a bargaining chip" in migration negotiations.
"I am sincerely saddened for these 13 young adults," Prevot added.
