4 August 2026
Belgium is home to a range of organisations working on respiratory health: some bring together healthcare professionals, others focus on patient advocacy, some cover the full respiratory spectrum and others specific diseases. All advocate for better respiratory prevention, care and patient outcomes. Yet despite these efforts, respiratory health has remained largely absent from national policy.
Until recently, national policy rarely mentioned lung health beyond tobacco control, where Belgium has built a strong intergovernmental strategy on tobacco control. Conditions like COPD and asthma have received little attention, though lung cancer and rare lung diseases have recently gained ground through the national cancer plan and the national rare diseases plan
Chronic respiratory diseases still lag behind, and that is the gap the Belgian Respiratory Coalition, with IRC’s support, aims to close. By bringing existing organisations together, the coalition is turning separate efforts into a coordinated, policy-focused movement.
Creating visibility, political connections, and impactful projects
The Belgian coalition joined the IRC in 2023. In its first phase, the coalition focused on raising the profile of respiratory health and building relationships with policymakers, beginning with a series of awareness events and evolving into longer-term, ongoing projects. Here is what that has looked like in practice:
Awareness days
- The 20 km of Brussels: The Belgian Lung Foundation has taken part in this public event every year since 2024, raising awareness of respiratory health.
- World COPD Day: In November 2024, the Belgian Lung Foundation brought experts and members of parliament together at Belgium’s Chamber of Representatives for ‘COPD: a long-term work’, a discussion on COPD policy. In November 2025, the coalition built on this with a full day of activity: a public event followed by a scientific event that evening, launching development of the national Chronic Respiratory Diseases plan.
- World Asthma Day 2026: IRC and the Belgian coalition co-hosted a joint event featuring a GINA policy update, regional best-practice examples, and high-level speeches: WHO Special Envoy for chronic respiratory diseases José Luis Castro on time-bound global asthma priorities, and MEP Tomislav Sokol on EU health budget advocacy. The event closed with a patient-perspective panel on next steps for asthma policy.
Ongoing projects
- E-cigarettes, vaping and prevention: In 2025 and 2026, the coalition carried out focused advocacy work on vaping, demonstrating its value to legislators while building relationships that support its wider advocacy goals. The Belgian Respiratory Society (BeRS) and Belgian Lung Foundation also joined the Alliance Smokefree Society, securing a seat at the table on tobacco control. A €15,000 starting grant funded the BeRS Taskforce on Vaping/Smoking Prevention & Cessation to develop an online platform for the Vaping #YourChoice Belgium teaching programme, in which healthcare professionals give guest lessons in schools on the health risks of vaping and tobacco industry tactics.
- Early diagnosis: The coalition partners are taking part in a collaborative spirometry project between primary and secondary care organisations, surveying the barriers and facilitators to performing spirometry. The survey launches in autumn 2026.
Working towards a national chronic respiratory diseases plan
The coalition’s longer-term ambition is to develop a national chronic respiratory disease (CRD) plan, structured around four fields of action aligned with the patient journey: prevention, early diagnosis, treatment and long-term care management.
Initial discussions have focused on COPD, with the scope now expanding to asthma and bronchiectasis, and potentially, in time, conditions such as interstitial lung disease and pulmonary arterial hypertension.
The coalition is taking a methodical approach: stakeholder mapping, priority and goal setting, and defining measurable actions. Belgium’s federal structure, where health competencies are split between national and regional governments, adds complexity, so the team has set a realistic, long-term timeline:
- Q4 2027: Complete the national CRD plan, with a Policy Call to Action document as the final deliverable
- 2029–2030: Advocate for inclusion in the next government’s policy note
- Q4 2035: First evaluation of plan implementation
The coalition is still early in this journey, but the direction is clear. Two years ago, respiratory advocacy in Belgium had no coordinated voice. Today there is a coalition with a growing network of political connections and a shared ambition to change that for good. It is a model other national coalitions can look to as they build their own path forward.