“Is it possible?”: Why political paralysis threatens Brussels’ ambitious arts complex | Belgium

A year before its scheduled opening on November 28, 2026, construction work on the Canal Museum, a new contemporary art museum in Brussels, is underway on schedule.

Located in a remodeled former Citroen garage on the northwest edge of downtown, the center is 95% complete. Curators are putting the finishing touches on the inaugural exhibition that will include works by Matisse, Picasso and Giacometti on loan from the Center Pompidou in Paris. Trilingual wall texts have already been signed in English, Dutch and French.

With 12,500 square meters of exhibition space spread over five floors, an architecture centre, restaurants and live performance venues, The museum will be larger than the original Tate Modern in London, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. The investment reflects the desire to transform Europe’s administrative capital into a cultural destination in its own right.

But in recent weeks, the conversation about Canal’s opening has moved from “when” to “if.” A year and a half after Belgian regional elections, a functioning government for the semi-autonomous Brussels-Capital Region is still in sight. The only thing that seems certain is the expected austerity measures and plans to cut the channel’s budget by more than half.

“We never expected that 12 months before the opening, and 18 months after the elections, there would be no government,” the museum director said. Cassia redisces. “If there is no decision on the budget, we risk stopping construction, threatening the future of the entire project.”

Plans to equip the Belgian capital with a museum that not only displays contemporary art, but also collects contemporary art, go back at least a quarter of a century. Neither the Fils Gallery of Modern Art in Brussels nor the more classical Bouzar Center for Fine Arts have their own collections. In the absence of such an institution, the Museum of Modern Art in New York purchased collections by important Belgian artists such as Marcel Broodthaers and shipped them to the United States.

In 2001, American curator Michael Tarantino was appointed to head the arts center, but the project was hampered by political infighting and shelved after Tarantino’s death in 2003.

Thirteen years later, under the watch of the ruling Socialist Party, a compromise was reached to convert the former Citroën garage built in 1934 on Place de l’Isser into a canal.

The sheer scale of the plans drew criticism from the start.

“It is a nation-state-sized project implemented by a regional government, a technocratic decision that has been greatly exaggerated by consultants and advisors,” said Dirk Snawart, director of Vels, which receives no structural financial support from the Brussels region. “Who thinks this is possible?”

The formal partnership with the Center Pompidou, which is limited to five years after the Canal opens, will cost Brussels €2m (£1.75m) a year. The connection to the Paris arts complex was met with skepticism by some Flemish speakers, who make up 60% of Belgium’s population but are a minority in the capital, raising doubts about French colonial attitudes.

“The Canal is a really important project, but the relationship with the Pompidou was complicated and confusing from the beginning,” said Chris Dercon, the former Belgian director of the Tate Modern who now runs the Cartier Foundation in Paris. “Why do we need the Pompidou Collection in Brussels when we have some of the best private collections in Europe here in Belgium?”

Canal’s supporters say such disagreements are inevitable for a project with global ambitions, and that similar objections have been leveled at arts centers now seen as indispensable to the fabric of their cities, such as the Tate Modern and the Center Pompidou in Paris.

Under her leadership, Canal will focus on supporting contemporary artists born or living in Belgium, Redzeisz said. She said the museum will create 780 direct and indirect jobs and inject 144.4 million euros into Brussels’ economy every year.

The arts complex includes 20,000 square meters of public space and a playground designed by the Turner Prize-winning collective. Canal also organized workshops to prepare children from 27 nearby schools for the opening.

“It is absolutely essential that Brussels has this space,” says Anne Demeester, a Belgian art historian and director of Kunsthaus Zurich in Switzerland. “This is the symbolic heart of Europe, a city full of artists, a city as bold as Berlin once was.”

The gridlock in the Brussels-Capital region continues for 537 days and could exceed the previous record.

“We must find 1 billion euros in savings from a total budget of 7 billion euros,” said a spokesman for the centrist Francophone Les Engagés party, one of the six parties at the negotiating table. “All departments and projects will have to contribute to this collective effort and the canal project will not be excluded.”

A spokesman for the Flemish Green Party said: “The current ambitions for Canal, a project that falls outside the core competencies [of the Brussels regional government]will have to be severely reduced. We’ll have to see what’s possible with a smaller budget.

According to reports in L’Echo newspaper, the MR Liberal Party has proposed cutting Canal’s €35 million annual operating budget by 60%, although it has not made the proposal official.

Wiels’ Snawart urges officials to find savings in the costly tie-up with Pompidou. “We all hope our money is not wasted,” he said. “But the wise decision is to cut ties with Pompidou and invest the money in culture instead.”

“There is a new financial reality, we understand it, and we are ready to accept the reduction like everyone else,” Redzich said.

“I still believe that politicians will recognize the huge potential of this project as a destination, as a landmark for Brussels. To abandon the canal now would be cultural suicide.”