Postcard from... Brussels

They are the ultimate diplomatic gift, but the two giant pandas which finally arrived in Belgium at the weekend have not exactly been healing political rifts in their adopted homeland.

Xing Hui and Hao Hao were given a lavish welcome when they touched down from China on Sunday and made their way to quarantine in an animal park near the city of Mons. But a police escort for their journey raised eyebrows in these times of austerity.

“We are understaffed and even have to cancel interventions, but at the same time four policemen are deployed to escort the pandas,” the police union said.

It was only the latest controversy to envelop the male and female pair, who are on a 15-year loan in Beijing’s latest gesture of “panda diplomacy” reserved for countries with strong trade ties to China.

The announcement in September that Xing Hui and Hao Hao would be housed in the Pairi Daiza animal park in the French-speaking south of Belgium sparked an outcry among some politicians in the Flemish-speaking north, which had been hoping to welcome the pair at Antwerp Zoo.

Members of the Flemish separatist N-VA party accused Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, a francophone, of favouritism ahead of elections in May.