The city of Brussels will grant a monthly premium of up to €800 to administration officials who choose to give up their public service vehicles for other means of transport.
The premium is part of a mobility budget and is capped at a maximum of €800 per month for elected officials of Brussels 1000, Belgian media reports.
A total of seven officials have already turned down using a vehicle provided by the administration and are eligible for receiving the premium.
The measure has drawn some resistance from the opposition, with La Dernière Heure pointing out that the officials can already use Brussels' public transport network free of charge.
So far, the green party group's Benoît Hellins, Zoubida Jellab, Arnaud Pinxteren and Bart Dhont have already turned down a car, along with the Parti Socialiste's Delphine Houba, her Flemish counterpart Ans Persoons and liberal party DéFi's Fabian Maingain.
Alderman Benoît Hellings said that the allocated budget would not surpass €800, an amount he said was "identical to the cost of public service vehicles allocated to our colleagues."
According to La Dernière Heure, Hellings also added that if the budget was not used in its entirety, it would not be used to complement officials' salary.
Gabriela Galindo
The Brussels Times
