--- category: City created: 2026-05-14 location: Brussels, Belgium summary: Brussels is the capital of Belgium and the headquarters of NATO and the European Union; it appears in this vault as the administrative center through which NATO's Gladio stay-behind network and Belgian intelligence operated, and through its proximity to the Knokke-Heist area central to the Dutroux X-Dossier investigation. tags: - City - Belgium - NATO - EU - Intelligence - Gladio updated: 2026-05-17 --- Brussels (Bruxelles/Brussel) is the capital of [Belgium](/places/belgium/) and the most important international city in continental Europe after [Paris](/places/paris/), serving as the de facto capital of the European Union and the headquarters of [NATO](/organizations/nato/) since 1967. The city of Brussels proper has a population of approximately 175,000, while the Brussels Capital Region has approximately 1.2 million residents.[^1] ### NATO Headquarters [NATO](/organizations/nato/)'s headquarters, known as SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), relocated from [Paris](/places/paris/) to Brussels in 1967 when French President [Charles de Gaulle](/people/charles-de-gaulle/) withdrew France from NATO's integrated military command and expelled NATO forces from French soil. NATO's political headquarters (the North Atlantic Council) subsequently moved from Paris to a purpose-built facility in Evere, northeast of Brussels. The move made Brussels the de facto capital of the Western alliance's military and political coordination infrastructure.[^1] NATO's presence in Brussels meant the city also hosted the intelligence liaison offices of all NATO member states' intelligence services, including CIA Europe operations, [MI6](/organizations/mi6/), the [BND](/organizations/bundesnachrichtendienst/), and the services of smaller member states. This concentration of intelligence officers in a relatively small city created an intensive intelligence environment. Belgium's own intelligence service, the Surete de l'Etat (state security), maintained its headquarters in Brussels with liaison responsibilities to the allied services.[^2] ### European Union The European Commission, European Parliament (which alternates with Strasbourg), and the Council of the European Union are all headquartered in Brussels. The EU's intelligence coordination body, the IntCen (Intelligence Analysis Centre), which aggregates open-source and liaison intelligence for EU decision-makers, is also based in Brussels. The EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy coordination infrastructure, relevant to several of this vault's subjects, is administered from Brussels.[^1] ### Gladio and Belgian Intelligence [Belgium](/places/belgium/)'s [Gladio](/programs/operation-gladio/) stay-behind network - known as SDRA8 within military intelligence - was administered through Brussels-based military intelligence structures. The Gladio network's weapons caches were distributed across Belgium. Following the October 1990 Italian disclosure of Gladio's existence, Belgian parliamentary investigations revealed that the Belgian network had possible connections to the Brabant massacres of 1983-1985, which killed 28 people in supermarket attacks that investigators believed exceeded any rational criminal purpose.[^2] Brussels was also the city from which the Belgian political and judicial establishments operated - the same establishments implicated in the [X-Dossier](/events/x-dossier/) testimonies collected during the [Marc Dutroux](/people/marc-dutroux/) investigation. While the abuse events described by witnesses occurred primarily in [Knokke-Heist](/places/knokke-heist/) and other locations, the political and judicial figures named were based in the Brussels governmental world. [^1]: "Brussels," *Encyclopaedia Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/place/Brussels [^2]: Ganser, Daniele. *NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe.* Frank Cass, 2005.