BRUSSELS (EJP)---The Brussels regional parliament has blocked the implementation of a cooperation agreement between Belgian and Israeli universities on neurosurgery research because of political considerations, EJP has learned.

A scientific and industrial cooperation agreement, signed in 1998 between the governments of the Brussels regional government and Israel, was suspended in March 2002, in the midst of the second intifada, by a Socialist-Christian-Democrat-Green majority of the parliament on the ground that it should be freeze “until a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine will allow a fructuous cooperation.”

Since then, several demands, mainly within the liberal opposition, have been introduced in the parliament to relaunch the cooperation agreement, but they have been rejected.

Campaign for new agreement

“Since the suspension of the agreement, new elements have appeared in the Middle East peace process which allow the consideration of renewed cooperation between the two partners,” Viviane Teitelbaum, a Jewish liberal MP, who is actively campaigning in favour of the agreement, told EJP.

She, and other Liberal Brussels MPs, this week introduced a new resolution in the Parliament to ask for the cooperation to be relaunched.

“It’s important that, like the European Union and other European countries, the Brussels parliament realizes that one can criticize a democratically elected government while maintaining constructive relations in the fields of economy, culture or research,” she added.

Contacted by EJP, the press office of the head of the Brussels government was unable to comment.

I am calling on the European scientists to collaborate with us and not boycott us. It’s an error. Prof. Idan Segev

The suspension of the agreement is blocking the implementation of the cooperation between the neurosurgery departments of the Erasme university Hospital in Brussels and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on joint research into patients suffering from the Parkinson disease.

“I want to express my profound disagreement with the decision of the Brussels region,” Professor Jacques Brotchi, head of the Erasme hospital neurosurgery department, told RTL television.

“We have the chance to offer the Jerusalem university a clinical platform they don’t have and they can offer us research we do not have,” Brotchi stressed.

Opportunity for medical progress

Brotchi, who is also a Liberal member of the Belgian Senate, added: “Why can’t we do it together? We will go faster if we work together and the patients suffering from Parkinson disease will be the main recipients.”

Prof.Jacques Brotchi, head of the neurosurgery department of Erasme Hospital in Brussels. Photo: ULB

A world renowned doctor, Brotchi has developed an active collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on joint research projects on the brain.

Prof. Segev, head of the Jerusalem Center, said he doesn’t understand that “one can sacrifice science.”

“I am calling on the European scientists to collaborate with us and not boycott us. It’s an error.” Segev, who is also a peace militant, said.