Belgium commits to rail liberalisation with phased post-2032 transition

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Belgium commits to rail liberalisation with phased post-2032 transition

By Thomas Wintle | August 4 2026

The liberalisation of the Belgian network moves forward. © SNCB/NMBS. NMBS/SNCB

BELGIUM: The federal government has formally committed to liberalising the subsidised passenger rail market from 2033, approving a phased transition to competitive tendering after SNCB’s current public service contract expires.

The federal cabinet approved the reform strategy on July 18, resolving a question that successive Belgian governments had spent years studying without choosing a firm model for the market after 2032. The decision is the first formal political commitment to a phased tendering model for the post-2032 network, rather than merely examining possible pilot projects or alternative structures.

SNCB’s 2023–32 public service contract was awarded directly under transitional provisions in EU legislation before competitive tendering became the general rule for rail public service contracts in December 2023. Its expiry leaves Belgium needing to establish a new system for awarding and managing subsidised domestic passenger services.

The cabinet decision settles the broad direction but not the detailed structure of the future market. Federal mobility minister Jean-Luc Crucke must now develop the proposed architecture and implementation timetable, including the sequence of tenders and the arrangements needed to manage a network operated under multiple contracts, before returning the plan to the cabinet for approval.

How the phased transition would work

The federal government said the reform would be based on four elements:

Phased competitive tendering: subsidised passenger services would be divided into separate contracts and brought to market progressively, rather than the entire network being tendered at once. SNCB could compete for the contracts alongside rival operators.

Jean-Luc Crucke © BMonten/WikiCommons

A transitional SNCB contract: when the current agreement expires on December 31 2032, SNCB would receive a directly awarded, progressively shrinking contract covering services for which no tender had yet been completed. Those services would be removed from the contract as successive packages were tendered and awarded.

A stronger federal contracting authority: a public authority would be responsible for the strategic design of passenger services, determining the scope of contracts, organising tenders and supervising the resulting agreements. The government said it would require sufficient staffing and technical and regulatory expertise.

Common co-ordination, fares and ticketing: mechanisms would be introduced to maintain technical interoperability, co-ordinate timetables between subsidised and commercial services, and ensure the efficient use of infrastructure and rolling stock. Uniform fares and ticketing would be retained within the public service network, with the system open to integration with regional transport operators and other transport providers.

Crucke has been tasked with turning these principles into a detailed market design and phased implementation timetable, which will then return to the federal cabinet for approval. No deadline has been given.

Preparation window narrowing

The phased model would avoid an overnight transfer of the network on January 1 2033, but it also reflects the amount of preparatory work still required. In a 2024 study examining how competitive tendering could be introduced through pilot passenger rail contracts, Belgium’s federal transport administration, SPF Mobilité et Transports, warned that the time needed to organise the pilots and prepare the post-2032 railway system was ‘considerable’, adding that ‘there must be no delay along the way’.

The study shortlisted possible pilot networks around Gent, Hasselt and Liège, and on the Namur – Luxembourg axis, but none has yet progressed to procurement. Crucke sharpened the warning when questioned by parliament in March, citing the ‘relatively short period’ remaining until the end of 2032 and a ‘lack of preparation resulting from the absence of action by previous governments’. He said Belgium still had to turn its political objectives into a workable market structure before tenders could be launched, describing the preparation as ‘a long-term undertaking’.

The July decision now establishes the broad mechanism for that transition, but does not identify which services will be tendered first or when procurement will begin. The government must also decide whether SPF Mobilité or a new specialist body will act as contracting authority. Crucke said the federal state’s role in organising the public service would be ‘considerably strengthened’, with responsibility for specifying and supervising the future contracts. That authority will also have to resolve the practical conditions needed for rival operators to actually compete.

‘Vested interests’

Liberalisation advocates have greeted the decision warmly, with AllRail, the lobby group for new entrants, calling it ‘welcome news from our home country’ and praising Crucke for ‘opening a path to competition’. Yet its warning that ‘vested interests will inevitably resist change’ points to substantial opposition within Belgian politics and the railway unions to delivering competition against the incumbent.

In a direct response to the cabinet decision, the Workers’ Party of Belgium said: ‘We keep being told [competition] is “mandatory”. That’s false. European regulations allow Belgium to maintain a single operator. It’s a political choice, not an inevitability.’ The party added that rail was ‘too important for us to allow it to become a hunting ground for shareholders’.

The Belgian network is opening up. © NMBS/SNCB

Barriers to market entry

Whether the reform produces the ‘genuine competition’ sought by AllRail will depend heavily on the conditions under which new entrants can bid for and mobilise public service contracts. To win one, an operator would need to price and demonstrate a credible plan for delivering the specified services, including sufficient rolling stock and access to maintenance facilities.

SNCB currently owns all of the trains and workshops used to operate the national public service. The 2024 SPF Mobilité study found that suitable rolling stock for the Belgian network could not readily be sourced from the international leasing market, leaving a new operator either needing to procure a new fleet or take over existing SNCB trains.

The current public service contract provides for the possible transfer of SNCB rolling stock, but the arrangements have yet to be clarified, including which vehicles would be made available, how they would be valued and how the new operator would obtain technical documentation, maintenance records and spare parts.

The choice would have a significant effect on both the cost and timing of entry. The study estimated that an operator taking over an existing fleet could begin services around 18 months after a contract was awarded, compared with approximately three and a half years if new trains had to be procured. In the latter case, rolling stock could account for between 25% and 40% of the total value of a public service contract lasting 10 to 15 years.

What we want, as a public company, is to be indispensable and win this competition.

‘No desire to transfer activities’

Maintenance facilities present a similar hurdle. New operators would be entitled to non-discriminatory access to existing workshops, but the study warned that reliance on SNCB for a core operating function could deter bidders. The alternatives include transferring an SNCB facility, providing a publicly owned workshop or requiring the successful operator to develop its own depot. The report indicated that, where workshop provision was required, approximately three years could be needed between contract signature and the start of operations.

These arrangements would need to be defined early enough for bidders to calculate their costs and mobilisation requirements. Their ability to do so would also depend on access to SNCB data on passenger demand, operating costs and the condition of trains and facilities. Failure to settle these questions promptly would reduce the number of service packages that could be tendered and transferred before SNCB’s current contract expires at the end of 2032, leaving a larger share of the network within the transitional direct award, an outcome unlikely to trouble SNCB management.

‘What we want, as a public company, is to be indispensable and win this competition’, CEO Sophie Dutordoir told local media in January. ‘I have no desire to transfer activities to other operators.’

The case in the Netherlands

The prospect of retaining a substantial residual contract may suit SNCB’s management, but its size and duration could create a legal problem for the federal government. In the neighbouring Netherlands, the European Commission has already referred the government to the European Court of Justice over the direct award of the 2025-33 main network concession to incumbent NS.

The Dutch contract was awarded before unconditional direct awards ceased to be permitted in December 2023, but operations under it began in January 2025. The Commission argues that it should therefore have been competitively awarded and that the Netherlands failed to establish whether some of the services could be provided commercially without public service subsidy.

Belgium’s proposed arrangement differs in that SNCB would receive a ‘contract in extinction’, with services progressively removed as competitive tenders were completed. However, the government has not yet specified the legal basis for that direct award, its maximum duration or a binding timetable for reducing its scope.

If procurement is delayed, SNCB could retain much of the network for several years after 2032. Belgium would then have to justify why those services had not been tendered and why their continued direct award remained necessary; the larger and longer the residual contract, the harder that case may be to make.

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Belgium commits to rail liberalisation with phased post-2032 transition

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