The New Leviathan Blog

Transport: abuses by the Belgian state

Less than two weeks after announcing her intention to develop a text aimed at prohibiting “jumping” between Belgian airports that are too close, Renaat Landuyt (SP.A) puts a draft royal decree on the table and submits it to consultation of the Regions. The text we have seen is two pages long and has three articles. “Considering the existing infrastructure of means of communication on Belgian territory as well as the different modes of transport of passengers and goods” and “that at present, the modes of land transport offer satisfactory services”, writes- There is reason to prohibit hopping between two Belgian airports less than 150 km apart.

This text follows the decision of Walloon Minister André Antoine (CDH) banning the Charleroi-Liège flight planned by the Moroccan low-cost company Jet4you before the final flight to Casablanca. But it is not appreciated by everyone. “Minister Landuyt’s AR does not suit anyone and unnecessarily disrupts the smooth running of airline activities in Belgium. Furthermore, a ban of this type does not exist in any country in Europe and is, de facto, a brake to the development of Belgian sites”, denounces Luc Partoune, general director of SAB, manager of Liège airport. According to this, the AR makes any flight between Liège and the airports of Charleroi, Brussels-National and Antwerp impossible. “This text undermines business aviation activities between Liège and Antwerp, the charter traffic operated by JetAir and Thomas Cook between Liège and Brussels when they launch a new route. Without forgetting the cargo traffic carried out by TNT , the first Belgian company in the fleet, between Liège and Brussels”, he insists. Ostend-Brussels flights would also be banned.

Landuyt says he is aware of the problem that his order will cause for freight traffic. But, “it is a choice in favor of ecology and we must put an end to these economically unjustifiable and ecologically harmful thefts,” he told us. “I hope that the text will come into force in four months, the consultation with the Regions will take three months and the opinion of the Council of State will not come before a month,” he specifies.

“It’s a good step forward. I hope that the Regions and the federal government will work together to support the file at the European level,” said Minister André Antoine. In this regard, he received a response from European Commissioner Louis Michel to the letter sent to four members of the European executive to plead an end to leapfrogging in Europe. A meeting should be organized shortly.” (Source: La Libre, 01/12/2006)

The question this case raises is the following: why is it the role of the State to prohibit anything in terms of transport? The “regulatory fury” of the bureaucracy is constantly spreading and expanding, on grounds that are not its own, because the counterweight of other organizing authorities or responsible private operators does not oppose it. . There is always a “good reason”, a news item which serves as an argument for his intervention, up to the “restoration of order” which seems necessary to dictatorships. We see, in this case, how collusion is established between Belgian bureaucrats at the national and European levels. The State must gradually limit itself to its essential attributions, namely the intervention of the public force in a small number of matters where the self-regulation of society cannot play.