According to preliminary figures from the European Commission, 19,400 people lost their lives in traffic in the European Union in 2025. This represents a 3 percent decrease from 2024, resulting in 580 fewer fatalities. However, progress is “too slow” to meet the 2030 target.

“Given the increase in the number of vehicles on EU roads and the number of kilometers traveled, this is a significant achievement,” the Commission believes. However, most Member States are still not on track to halve road fatalities this decade.

Belgium, on the other hand, is. Belgium does better than average and is improving almost twice as fast as the EU. Other middle group countries include Germany and Spain. The situation on the roads in Romania and Bulgaria is the worst, with an average of 70 to 80+ traffic deaths per million inhabitants, twice the risk in Belgium.

Best performers, on the other hand, are the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, with the safest roads and about 20 to 30 deaths per million inhabitants.

Last year, Belgium recorded 39 road fatalities per million inhabitants, a 29 percent decrease from 2019. In the EU, the average number of road fatalities was 43 per million inhabitants, or a decrease of ‘only’ 15 percent over the same period.