On January 23, the Kingdom of Belgium became the 34th country to sign the Artemis Accords. In a ceremony at the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, Ms. Hadja Lahbib, Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Affairs, and Foreign Trade and the Federal Cultural Institutions, and Mr. Thomas Dermine, State Secretary for Economic Recovery and Strategic Investments, in charge of Science Policy, Deputy to the Minister of the Economy and Employment signed the Accords on behalf of Belgium.
The United States and Belgium are close partners and NATO Allies, and Belgium is a major contributor to NASA-led Artemis missions via its membership in the European Space Agency. In December 2023, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Michael Adler visited NASA’s Johnson Space Center along with Belgian Astronaut Raphaël Liégeois. The United States is pleased to see Belgium deepen our close cooperation on space issues through its affirmation of the Artemis Accords’ vision for the peaceful exploration and use of outer space.
Jointly led by the Department of State and NASA, the Artemis Accords were established in 2020 with eight countries participating and set out a practical set of principles to guide and foster cooperation through space exploration. The Kingdom of Belgium joins Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, the Republic of Korea, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States in affirming the principles of the Accords for peaceful and sustainable civil space activity.
