A human-interest case with policy ramifications hit the headlines on 22 July when The Brussels Times profiled Ahmad Abu Jami, a 28-year-old doctor from Gaza who won a fully-funded scholarship to Antwerp’s Institute of Tropical Medicine but cannot obtain a Belgian visa. Belgium insists that long-stay study visas be lodged in person, yet Gaza lacks any Belgian consular post and crossings are largely sealed. Six other Gazan scholarship holders face the same predicament. Flemish universities wrote to Prime Minister Bart De Wever demanding remote visa filing or organised evacuation—a request the Foreign Ministry has so far rebuffed on security grounds. A Belgian court recently ruled in favour of another student, saying email applications are legally permissible, but officials argue that physical presence is essential for identity checks. The stalemate spotlights the tension between Belgium’s development-co-operation objectives and its tightening migration controls. It also raises reputational questions for Belgian higher-education institutes that market themselves as globally accessible. If no solution emerges before the academic year, affected programmes may have to defer places or lose EU funding linked to development scholarships. Universities and corporate sponsors that rely on Belgium’s study-to-work pipeline should monitor any precedent set by the pending legal appeals; a court-mandated remote-visa channel could eventually ease processing for other conflict-zone applicants, altering risk assessments for corporate traineeships.
Source: The Brussels Times
