belgian-law-mcp

Belgian Law MCP Server

The Belgian law corpus is now served through the Ansvar Gateway. Connect your AI assistant (Claude, Copilot, Cursor, or any MCP client) to https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp — one OAuth connection, free tier available, covering this corpus plus EU regulations, national law across 28 audited jurisdictions (Europe + the US), and CVE/security intelligence, every result with a verbatim source citation. Start at https://ansvar.eu/docs/quickstart

Connect

Claude Code (one line):

claude mcp add ansvar --transport http https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp

Claude Desktop / Cursor — add to claude_desktop_config.json (or mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ansvar": {
      "type": "url",
      "url": "https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude.ai — Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp

First request opens an OAuth signup flow (setup details: ansvar.eu/docs/quickstart). After signup, your client is bound to your account; tier (free / premium / team / company) determines fan-out, quota, and which downstream MCPs are reachable.

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Self-host this MCP

You can also clone this repo and build the corpus yourself. The schema, fetcher, and tool implementations all live here. What is not in the repo is the pre-built database — TDM and standards-licensing constraints on the upstream sources mean we host the corpus on Ansvar infrastructure rather than redistribute it as a public artifact.

Build your own: run this repo's ingestion script (entry-point varies per repo — typically scripts/ingest.sh, npm run ingest, or make ingest; check the repo root).

The Belgian Official Gazette (Belgisch Staatsblad / Moniteur belge) alternative for the AI age.

Query 5,775 Belgian statutes -- from the loi du 30 juillet 2018 (protection des données) and Code pénal to the Code civil, Code des sociétés et des associations, and more -- directly from Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client.

If you're building legal tech, compliance tools, or doing Belgian legal research, this is your verified reference database.

Built by Ansvar Systems -- Stockholm, Sweden

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Why This Exists

Belgian legal research means navigating the bilingual Belgisch Staatsblad / Moniteur belge, reconciling French and Dutch texts, and manually cross-referencing between federal, regional, and community law. Belgium also hosts the EU's primary institutions -- making Belgian law particularly relevant for EU regulatory compliance work. Whether you're:

• A lawyer validating citations in a brief or contract
• A compliance officer checking GDPR implementation or Loi anti-blanchiment requirements
• A legal tech developer building tools on Belgian or EU institutional law
• A researcher tracing EU institutional decisions back to Belgian implementation

...you shouldn't need dozens of browser tabs and multilingual PDF cross-referencing. Ask Claude. Get the exact provision. With context.

This MCP server makes Belgian law searchable, cross-referenceable, and AI-readable.

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Example Queries

Once connected, just ask naturally -- in French, Dutch, or English:

French:

• "Que dit la loi du 30 juillet 2018 sur la protection des données (article 5) ?"
• "Recherche des dispositions sur la 'protection des données' dans le droit belge"
• "Quelles directives européennes la loi du 30 juillet 2018 met-elle en œuvre ?"
• "Trouvez les sanctions pénales dans le Code pénal pour fraude informatique"
• "Qu'est-ce que le Code des sociétés et des associations dit sur la responsabilité des administrateurs ?"

Dutch:

• "Wat zegt de wet van 30 juli 2018 over toestemming voor gegevensverwerking?"
• "Zoek naar 'gegevensbescherming' in het Belgische recht"
• "Welke Belgische wetten implementeren de AVG (GDPR)?"

English:

• "Which Belgian laws implement the GDPR?"
• "Compare NIS2 implementation requirements across Belgian statutes"

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What's Included

Category	Count	Details
Statutes	5,775 statutes	Comprehensive Belgian federal legislation
Provisions	142,743 sections	Full-text searchable with FTS5
Agency Guidance	10 documents	GBA/APD regulatory guidance (Premium)
Database Size	~126 MB	Optimized SQLite, portable
Daily Updates	Automated	Freshness checks against Belgisch Staatsblad

Verified data only -- every citation is validated against official sources (ejustice.just.fgov.be). Zero LLM-generated content.

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See It In Action

Why This Works

Verbatim Source Text (No LLM Processing):

• All statute text is ingested from the Belgisch Staatsblad / Moniteur belge (ejustice.just.fgov.be)
• Provisions are returned unchanged from SQLite FTS5 database rows
• Zero LLM summarization or paraphrasing -- the database contains regulation text, not AI interpretations

Smart Context Management:

• Search returns ranked provisions with BM25 scoring (safe for context)
• Provision retrieval gives exact text by publication date + article number
• Cross-references help navigate without loading everything at once

Technical Architecture:

ejustice.just.fgov.be → Parse → SQLite → FTS5 snippet() → MCP response
                          ↑                      ↑
                   Provision parser       Verbatim database query

Traditional Research vs. This MCP

Traditional Approach	This MCP Server
Search Belgisch Staatsblad by date	Search by plain French/Dutch: "protection des données"
Navigate multilingual statute texts manually	Get the exact provision with context
Manual cross-referencing between laws	build_legal_stance aggregates across sources
"Is this statute still in force?" → check manually	check_currency tool → answer in seconds
Find EU basis → dig through EUR-Lex	get_eu_basis → linked EU directives instantly
Check ejustice for updates	Daily automated freshness checks
No API, no integration	MCP protocol → AI-native

Traditional: Search ejustice → Navigate HTML → Ctrl+F → Cross-reference French/Dutch texts → Check EUR-Lex → Repeat

This MCP: "Quelles obligations la loi du 30 juillet 2018 impose-t-elle et quelle directive EU la sous-tend ?" → Done.

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Available Tools (13)

Core Legal Research Tools (8)

Tool	Description
search_legislation	FTS5 search on 142,743 provisions with BM25 ranking
get_provision	Retrieve specific provision by statute identifier + article
validate_citation	Validate citation against database (zero-hallucination check)
build_legal_stance	Aggregate citations from statutes and agency guidance
format_citation	Format citations per Belgian conventions (full/short/pinpoint)
check_currency	Check if statute is in force, amended, or repealed
list_sources	List all available statutes with metadata and data provenance
about	Server info, capabilities, dataset statistics, and coverage summary

EU Law Integration Tools (5)

Tool	Description
get_eu_basis	Get EU directives/regulations for Belgian statute
get_belgian_implementations	Find Belgian laws implementing EU act
search_eu_implementations	Search EU documents with Belgian implementation counts
get_provision_eu_basis	Get EU law references for specific provision
validate_eu_compliance	Check implementation status (requires EU MCP)

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EU Law Integration

Belgium is an EU member state and the home of the European Commission, European Council, and most EU agencies. Belgian law is uniquely positioned at the intersection of EU institutional decision-making and national transposition.

Metric	Value
EU Member Since	1957 (founding member)
GDPR Implementation	Loi du 30 juillet 2018
NIS2 Implementation	Loi du 26 avril 2024 (cybersécurité)
Data Authority (FR)	Autorité de protection des données (APD)
Data Authority (NL)	Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit (GBA)
EUR-Lex Integration	Automated metadata fetching

Key Belgian EU Implementations

• GDPR (2016/679) → Loi du 30 juillet 2018 relative à la protection des personnes physiques
• NIS2 Directive (2022/2555) → Loi du 26 avril 2024 (NIS2 transposition)
• AI Act (2024/1689) → Belgian implementation in progress
• eIDAS (910/2014) → Loi du 21 juillet 2016 (signatures électroniques)
• AML Directive (2015/849) → Loi du 18 septembre 2017 (anti-blanchiment)
• Consumer Rights Directive (2011/83) → Code de droit économique, Livre VI

Note on language: Belgian law is officially trilingual. The database includes both French and Dutch texts for federal statutes. German-language texts (for the German-speaking Community) are not included in the current release.

See EU_INTEGRATION_GUIDE.md for detailed documentation.

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Data Sources & Freshness

All content is sourced from authoritative Belgian legal databases:

• ejustice.just.fgov.be -- Official Belgian law database (Justice)
• belgisch-staatsblad.be -- Belgisch Staatsblad / Moniteur belge
• EUR-Lex -- Official EU law database (metadata only)

Data Provenance

Field	Value
Authority	Service public fédéral Justice / Federale Overheidsdienst Justitie
Retrieval method	ejustice.just.fgov.be HTML parse
Languages	French and Dutch (both official federal languages)
License	Belgian public data (open government)
Coverage	5,775 federal statutes
Last ingested	2026-02-25

Automated Freshness Checks (Daily)

A daily GitHub Actions workflow monitors all data sources:

Source	Check	Method
Statute amendments	ejustice API date comparison	All 5,775 statutes checked
New statutes	Belgisch Staatsblad publication feed	Diffed against database
EU reference staleness	Git commit timestamps	Flagged if >90 days old

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Security

This project uses multiple layers of automated security scanning:

Scanner	What It Does	Schedule
CodeQL	Static analysis for security vulnerabilities	Weekly + PRs
Semgrep	SAST scanning (OWASP top 10, secrets, TypeScript)	Every push
Gitleaks	Secret detection across git history	Every push
Trivy	CVE scanning on filesystem and npm dependencies	Daily
Docker Security	Container image scanning + SBOM generation	Daily
Socket.dev	Supply chain attack detection	PRs
OSSF Scorecard	OpenSSF best practices scoring	Weekly
Dependabot	Automated dependency updates	Weekly

See SECURITY.md for the full policy and vulnerability reporting.

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Important Disclaimers

Legal Advice

THIS TOOL IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE

Statute text is sourced from official ejustice.just.fgov.be publications. However:

• This is a research tool, not a substitute for professional legal counsel
• Court case coverage is limited -- do not rely solely on this for case law research
• Verify critical citations against primary sources for court filings
• EU cross-references are extracted from Belgian statute text, not EUR-Lex full text
• Bilingual system -- French and Dutch texts both have official status; always verify the authoritative language version for your jurisdiction

Before using professionally, read: DISCLAIMER.md | PRIVACY.md

Client Confidentiality

Queries go through the Claude API. For privileged or confidential matters, use on-premise deployment. See PRIVACY.md for Ordre des barreaux francophones et germanophone (OBFG) / Orde van Vlaamse Balies (OVB) compliance guidance.

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Documentation

• EU Integration Guide -- Detailed EU cross-reference documentation
• EU Usage Examples -- Practical EU lookup examples
• Security Policy -- Vulnerability reporting and scanning details
• Disclaimer -- Legal disclaimers and professional use notices
• Privacy -- Client confidentiality and data handling

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Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/Belgium-law-mcp
cd Belgium-law-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm test

Running Locally

npm run dev                                       # Start MCP server
npx @anthropic/mcp-inspector node dist/index.js   # Test with MCP Inspector

Data Management

npm run ingest                     # Ingest statutes from ejustice
npm run build:db                   # Rebuild SQLite database
npm run drift:detect               # Run drift detection
npm run check-updates              # Check for amendments and new statutes

Performance

• Search Speed: <100ms for most FTS5 queries
• Database Size: ~126 MB (efficient, portable)
• Reliability: 100% ingestion success rate

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More Ansvar MCPs

Full fleet coverage at ansvar.eu/coverage.

Contributing

Contributions welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Priority areas:

• Court case law expansion (Cour de cassation, Conseil d'État)
• EU regulation cross-reference expansion
• German-language Community texts
• Regional law coverage (Wallonia, Flanders, Brussels-Capital)
• Historical statute versions and amendment tracking

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Roadmap

• Core statute database with FTS5 search

• Full corpus ingestion (5,775 statutes, 142,743 provisions)

• EU law integration tools

• Vercel Streamable HTTP deployment

• Daily freshness checks

• Court case law expansion

• Historical statute versions (amendment tracking)

• German-language Community law

• Regional/community legislation coverage

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Citation

If you use this MCP server in academic research:

@software{belgian_law_mcp_2026,
  author = {Ansvar Systems AB},
  title = {Belgian Law MCP Server: Production-Grade Legal Research Tool},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/Belgium-law-mcp},
  note = {5,775 Belgian statutes with 142,743 provisions and EU law cross-references}
}

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License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE for details.

Data Licenses

• Statutes & Legislation: Service public fédéral Justice (Belgian open government data)
• EU Metadata: EUR-Lex (EU public domain)

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About Ansvar Systems

We build AI-accelerated compliance and legal research tools for the European market. This MCP server started as our internal reference tool for Belgian and EU institutional law -- turns out everyone working at the EU-national interface has the same research frustrations.

So we're open-sourcing it. Navigating 5,775 statutes across two languages shouldn't require a law degree in both French and Dutch.

ansvar.eu -- Stockholm, Sweden

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_{Built with care in Stockholm, Sweden}