2024-03-13 13:39:00
In Wallonia, the progressive ban on the circulation of the most polluting vehicles should finally be replaced by measures targeted at large cities. There is no longer a total ban on older engines. This is what the Ecolo regional Minister of the Environment, Céline Tellier, will propose to the government “very soon”. Martin Buxant delivers his analysis.
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Change of program: in Wallonia, the ban on the most polluting vehicles replaced by measures targeted at large cities
Is this decision surprising in relation to the line that Ecolo has defended since coming to power?
Yes and no. Because Ecolo changes his mind regularly. Look, for example, at the extension of two nuclear power plants. On this issue, I called the minister in charge this morning, Céline Tellier, asking her why she was backpedaling on this symbolic measure, and she reminded me that she was not on the government’s bike when, in 2019, the Walloon majority at the time, MR/cdH, took this decision on the ban on old and polluting vehicles.
“Banning them everywhere doesn’t make sense, it would be like taking a bazooka to kill a fly”Tellier told me.
And it’s true that air pollution problems are concentrated first and foremost in big cities, that’s where we need to act. We are therefore going to relieve the rural people, the country people, by lifting this ban, it will restore the image of Ecolo among farmers.
There was a problem, the minister is trying to resolve it, and by the way, if we can derive electoral benefit from it, why deprive ourselves of it?
Is the environmental issue essential in the campaign, three months before the elections?
No, clearly not. We don’t have a “Greta Thunberg” wave to ride for the green parties, the issue of global warming has moved to the background of the electoral campaign. It is the question of purchasing power that dominates, it is THE major concern three months before the elections of June 9. Each party puts forward its measures and its proposals but everyone knows that Belgium’s coffers are empty.
Where to get the money? The left says: in the pockets of the rich, and there too, we saw a curious change of mind this week: the PTB no longer wants to tax millionaires from a million euros of assets, but from five million. Clearly, the PTB wants to avoid angering the upper middle class.
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“A real victory”: Touring’s reaction following Céline Tellier’s reversal on the ban on polluting vehicles in Wallonia
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