Belgium is to investigate former EU commissioner Didier Reynders' alleged links with a blacklisted Kremlin oligarch, on top of his ongoing money-laundering case.
The Brussels prosecutor's office confirmed to EUobserver on Tuesday (2 September) that it was "re-examining" Reynders' links to Moscow, following an initial report about the move in Belgian publications Humo and Apache on Monday.
The Russia probe concerns Reynders' relations with EU and US-blacklisted oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who is a close associate of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Reynders used to be a member of Deripaska's Belgian non-profit organisation, the now defunct Association Bruno Lussato et Marina Fédier, based in the Uccle district in Brussels, and Reynders' former cultural advisor, Constantin Chariot, was its director.
Belgian authorities had earlier investigated the association, which bought and sold art, in 2014 on allegations it was a money-laundering front, but mysteriously froze the probe in 2016.
Reynders' alleged corruption hit the headlines last December, when the Belgian federal prosecutor raided his home in an investigation into his imputed use of Belgium's ING bank to launder illicit cash - causing red faces at the EU Commission, where the 67-year-old had been the commissioner for justice from 2019 to 2024.
But Reynders was also Belgium's foreign and defence minister between 2011 and 2018, giving him access to the highest levels of classified EU and Nato documents - meaning that any dodgy Russia ties might have jeopardised Western security.
Reacting to the Deripaska-probe news, his Belgian law firm, Lex-litis, told this website: "My client has no comment. I draw your attention to the fact that defamation may be subject to criminal prosecution."
But the Brussels prosecutor, Julien Moinil, is not the only well-informed Belgian to take a new interest in the Reynders affair.
Walter De Smedt, a Belgian magistrate who is a former member of Comité R, Belgium's intelligence oversight body, also raised red flags in an op-ed in Belgian newspaper De Morgen on 28 August.
De Smedt said that Reynders had inserted his former cabinet colleague, called Hugues Brulin, into Belgium's VSSE intelligence service, in order to quash a VSSE officer's reports into Reynders' alleged Russia ties and wider abuses.
"Brulin was tasked with neutralising the reports," De Smedt wrote.
The VSSE declined to comment, while Brulin no longer works there and couldn't be reached.
Deripaska aside, several of the allegedly "neutralised" VSSE reports, which date back some 10 years ago and which were seen by EUobserver, said Reynders also had untoward links with a Belgian noble, Ernest de Laminne de Bex.
De Bex used to run a club called the Cercle International Diplomatique et Consulaire (CIDIC), which Reynders frequented and which organised soirées and field trips for Belgian and EU diplomats and other VIPs.
Reynders, in his then capacity as Belgian foreign minister, also granted de Bex his "baron" title in 2014.
But de Bex was a suspected Russian agent and CIDIC was a front for introducing EU personalities to Russian and Chinese spies, the "secret" VSSE reports claimed.
De Bex denied the allegations.
"This is pure slanderous fabrication," he told EUobserver.
"I have had only a few contacts with Mr. Reynders and have no connections with either Russia or China. I am a citizen of impeccable morality," he added.
Meanwhile, the new Belgian investigation into Reynders and Russia might also do well to ask broader questions about Reynders' brother, Jean-Pierre Reynders, who is an architect.
Jean-Pierre Reynders renovated the Russian embassy in Uccle in 2004, meaning he must have obtained high-level Russian security clearance, prompting the VSSE to open a file on him at the time, according to an internal VSSE log seen by EUobserver.
(The VSSE declined to comment on this too.)
And his architects' firm, Assar, helped to build the new Nato HQ in Brussels, which opened in 2017, posing another potential security risk.
Jean-Pierre Reynders didn't reply to EUobserver's questions.
But in any case, for one former VSSE officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, the multiplying Belgian investigations into the former EU commissioner and Belgian minister might come to nothing, as did previous ones, without media pressure.
"Even if his [Didier Reynders'] influence and might is waning, he still has connections, but if the press pushes hard, the police and prosecutors will feel stronger," the contact said.
The EU Commission and Nato didn't reply to questions.
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.
Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.