A planned ban on highly-polluting mopeds in Brussels has been postponed from 2025 to 2028, according to L’Echo, in a surprising change of course from the Brussels-Capital Region Government.
The ban is part of the Brussels Government's 2018 plan to remove polluting vehicles from low-emission zones (LEZ) through a total phase-out of internal combustion engines expected for 2028.
The Brussels Government and its Environmental Minister Alain Maron (of the French-speaking green party Ecolo) had targeted mopeds whose emission “can be up to 6 times and 11 times higher than those of petrol-powered private cars,” Maron’s cabinet argued last year.
The original plan had been to have them banned in the region’s LEZs by 2025 with the internal combustion engines set to be prohibited three years later. However, L’Echo reported on Wednesday that the ban on mopeds has now been postponed until 2028. The delay will, in turn, result in internal combustion engines being phased out by 2030 instead.
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The decision had come as a surprise given the government’s renewed efforts in banning polluting vehicles from low-emission zones. Many were left wondering whether Maron’s hands had been forced by his partners in the regional government in opposition to environmentally-friendly policies.
The minister’s cabinet refuted these claims, telling L’Echo that “there was a lack of information for moped owners who were going to be excluded in 2025.” The minister felt that these motorists would not be warned in time with the ban initially coming into force in less than two years.
Furthermore, Maron’s office argued that the postponement is "anecdotal" given that “moped traffic in the capital is negligible compared to all other vehicles.”
