On 29 January, the Execution Department organised a first videoconference with the Belgian authorities, including the Office of the Government Agent to the ECHR and representatives of the Ministry of Justice.
Discussions focused on execution measures still awaited in the context of cases soon to be examined by the Committee of Ministers: the Vasilescu group of cases, in March 2021, on the conditions of detention in prisons and the lack of an effective preventive remedy to complain about it; and the Bell case, in June 2021, on the excessive length of first instance civil proceedings, the execution of which is linked to the persistent lack of statistics on their average length.
It was agreed with the Belgian authorities to organize more videoconferences in the future to discuss specific issues.