This project was made possible by co-financing from the province of Zeeland.
The Flemish and Walloon governments are preparing a Flemish-Walloon road vignette for passenger cars. Both governments want to invest extra in road infrastructure, both maintenance and new road infrastructure. This requires large budgets, which are envisaged to be partly covered by a road vignette. As of 1 January 2027, 130 million euros in revenue is budgeted. Adjacent to this, there is a desire to make foreign road users also help pay for road infrastructure.
This analysis looks at an initial Cross-Border Impact Scan. A full Cross-Border Impact Assessment is retained to a published bill. However, given the topicality and contribution to the debate, we are formulating this Cross-Border Impact Scan. In doing so, we rely on the details already shared. The idea of a road vignette is not new and attempted in Germany, among others, through an Autobahnmaut. This plan was thwarted by the EU Court of Justice in 2019. In the 2017 Border Impact Assessment, ITEM examined the German proposal of an Autobahnmaut. The Flemish-Walloon plan seems similar to the Autobahnmaut. This allows us to extrapolate possible impacts identified for the Autobahnmaut to the Flemish-Walloon initiative. In this Cross-Border Impact Scan, we also set out the legal frameworks at the European level and compare the systematics in the neighbouring Benelux+ countries. Finally, we identify some specific frameworks for border regions.
