The company car is becoming the new bull’s eye in left-wing circles. After Groen’s train-for-car proposal, Belgium’s governing socialist party, Vooruit, wants to restrict tax breaks for company cars to vehicles largely produced in Europe. Protection or posturing?

Interesting twist: including their batteries. But above all, these parties would rather abolish the system that has successfully greened the national fleet altogether.

The highest number of company cars per capita

Will Belgium soon redraw the rules governing one of its most debated perks? Vooruit, a member of the federal coalition, has tabled draft legislation to reserve favourable tax treatment for company cars assembled primarily in Europe. The requirement would extend to battery production, a crucial component of electric models that now dominate corporate fleets.

Pushing the initiative is party leader Conner Rousseau, who argues that Belgium, which has one of the highest numbers of company cars per capita in Europe, should not use public policy to funnel money to manufacturers backed by Beijing or Washington.

Before this new charge against company cars, Elke Van den Brandt, Brussels Minister for Groen, called the company car system ‘absurd’, proposing a substitute train subscription of 12 euros. 

Rising 12%

Vooruit points to the rapid rise of Chinese electric vehicle brands on the European – not the Belgian – market. According to figures cited by Vooruit, Chinese manufacturers accounted for just over 8 per cent of Europe’s electric car sales in 2023, rising to 12 per cent by the end of 2025.

Environmental lobby group Transport & Environment has projected that, without intervention, the share could reach 20 per cent by 2027. 

Figures published by De Tijd at the beginning of 2026 show a rising popularity of Chinese models, but with total registrations of roughly 18,000 cars, they currently account for a little over 4%. These numbers include all drivetrains. Though often mediatized as forerunners of electrification, the vast majority of their sales are combustion-engined and bought by private buyers.

To the benefit of Volvo in Ghent?

As for company cars, Belgium registers roughly 250,000 units each year. Vooruit estimates that if a quarter of these (an unlikely sixfold increase over a record time) were sourced from Chinese brands, tens of thousands of vehicles would benefit from Belgian tax incentives.

At an average price of €40,000, Rousseau estimates that billions of euros could flow annually from Belgian firms to manufacturers outside Europe.

But the biggest caveat of this proposition is defining what counts as “European”. Vooruit underlines how Belgium’s only car production plant, and one of the biggest employers in the country, Volvo Car Gent, would benefit under the new ruling. However, Volvo is a fully-owned subsidiary of the Geely group, headquartered in Hangzhou, China. How would that not steer the profits to China?

Batteries from Europe

Furthermore, including locally produced battery packs would effectively rule out most electric cars made in Europe. Again, Volvo Car Gent assembles the battery packs needed for production, but the cells are imported from China (CATL) and Korea (LG). As for European battery manufacturing, the timing of such a draft couldn’t be more untimely. 

Flagship Northvolt has crumbled, with the remains owned by the American company Lyft. Earlier this week, Automotive Cells Company (a joint venture between Stellantis, Mercedes, and Total Energies) announced it would halt construction of two of its planned plants, betting all its cards on the Douvrin site, which can build up to 0,000 cars at maximum capacity. Douvrin is ailing and nowhere near full capacity. 

Enemy from within

On their side, Chinese car brands are building factories across Europe. Chery will kickstart production in Spain as of this year, BYD will start building Atto 3 and Atto 2 in Hungary – a contested site over unfair Chinese subsidies with a European investigation ongoing -, while Leapmotor is seeking production capacity in one of the Stellantis plants.

All these cars would qualify as tax-beneficial company cars. However, by nature, Asian models don’t make strides in the corporate sector because of limited in-house fleet ecosystems and lower residual values. The chances that BYD suddenly succeeds where Toyota (both imported in Belgium by the same company) has lagged for years seem slim.

The draft from Vooruit finds its qualification in a renewed protectionist uprising and hooks on to a long-standing criticism of Belgium’s company car system, often called an inefficient and socially unequal form of remuneration. That’s open for debate. But years of globalisation can’t be wiped out overnight. 

The Belgian corporate car perk, on the other hand, has many a fan on the European level, where it is touted as an exemplary lever to electrify a nation’s fleet and ultimately help fight climate change. With approximately one in three company cars in Belgium now battery-powered, driving down overall CO2 emissions, maybe that’s worth investing in too.