Brussels to delay ban on Euro 5 diesel in LEZ until 2027?

MR, Les Engagés, and the PS, the parties negotiating a new Brussels government on the French-speaking side, want to present a proposal in the Brussels Parliament that would postpone the introduction of the stricter low-emission zone (LEZ) emissions standards from early 2025 to early 2027. The parties report this in a joint press release.

Groen, the victor of the elections on the Dutch-speaking side and thus charged with forming a new government within that language group, reacted indignantly, saying that the three parties were putting a bomb under Brussels’ formation with their proposal. “The LEZ is a susceptible issue and must be discussed at the negotiation table.”

‘Pragmatic approach’

Just as federally and in Flanders, Brussels has no new government yet. But according to the group leaders of MR (David Lester), PS (Ahmed Laaouej), and Les Engagés (Christophe De Beuckelaere), the three parties negotiating on the French-speaking side for the formation of a new Brussels government, the LEZ in Brussels urgently needs to be addressed.

Therefore, the three parties propose to postpone the introduction of the stricter emission standard from January 2025 to early 2027. That stricter standard includes a ban on EURO 5 diesel vehicles, which would exclude many diesel cars.

According to car manufacturers’ figures, this would involve about 600,000 cars registered in Belgium, including 33,000 diesel vehicles owned by Brussels residents. But more than 1 million foreign cars are also registered each year for the LEZ – the proportion of foreign vehicles in the LEZ in 2022 averaged 5% per day. The exception would then obviously apply to them as well.

“January 1st, 2025, is tomorrow,” the three parties say. They point out that the LEZ has already brought about fleet renewal and improved air quality, but not everyone with a EURO 5 vehicle has yet been able to afford a new car. The delay would allow those people to “adapt to the next phase at a realistic pace.” According to the three parties, this is a “pragmatic approach.”

‘Negotiating agreements in back rooms’

For Elke Van den Brandt, the outgoing Minister of Mobility and the Groen politician trying to form a coalition on the Dutch-speaking side, Lester, De Beuckelaere, and Laaouej are putting a bomb under the Brussels government formation talks.

According to her, the fact that MR, PS, and Les Engagés are “negotiating agreements in back rooms” is a “clear signal that they want to work without the Dutch-speaking parties.” For Groen, “this is a clear breach of trust and a lack of respect for the Dutch-speaking parties ahead of the formation of a new Brussels government.”

Moreover, thanks to the LEZ, “air quality in Brussels has improved by 30%, whereas previously nearly 7,000 Brussel residents also died annually due to air pollution,” Van den Brandt says.

Quality of life in Brussels

According to Brussels Environment, between 2018 and 2023, annual nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations, mainly from automobile traffic, fell by 40%. Between 2022 and 2023, NO2 and particulate matter PM 10 and PM 2.5 concentrations decreased by about 10%.

“It is precisely the poorest and most densely populated neighborhoods, with the lowest car ownership, that are hardest hit by poor air,” Van den Brandt said on VRT news. “We cannot accept that MR, PS, and Les Engagés don’t want to discuss the quality of life of Brussels residents.”

She also hopes this is not a forerunner of how Brussels will be governed in the coming years. “This means that the French speakers are saying that they will see if they can find a majority with the Dutch speakers on a dossier-by-dossier basis. That takes us back to 30 years ago, to the time of community tensions.”

Eliminating Groen?

This proposal has also been considered in the past but has been rejected each time to meet climate targets. To be clear, The Brussels formation consists of two phases. First, a majority must be found in each language group, both Dutch-speaking and French-speaking.

Dutch-speaking parties need 9 seats out of 17, and French-speaking parties need 37 out of 72. The parties from the two-language group formed a Brussels government and thus worked out a coalition agreement.

MR, Les Engagés, and the PS come to 45 seats out of 89, a narrow majority. They will propose a decision once the Brussels parliament returns to work on September 16th.

According to the newspaper La Dernière Heure, the Dutch-speaking parties N-VA, Vooruit, Open-Vld, and Team Fouad Ahidar favor eliminating Groen from the negotiations. Together, they form a Dutch-speaking majority. At the same time, Open Vld already clearly vetoed a government with Ahidar at the end of June, which MR would not like either.