Exchange of odometer readings between EU member states urgently needed.

State Secretary for Consumer Protection Alexia Bertrand yesterday, Wednesday 24 January, reaffirmed in the European Parliament that the fight against odometer fraud is a major priority of the Belgian EU presidency. In all member states, garages, technical inspection, leasing companies and also governments already record mileage readings. It is crucial to bring these together in national registers accessible to buyers and sellers of used cars in order to provide transparency about the vehicle's odometer history. It is the most efficient way to combat odometer fraud, as the Car-Pass has clearly demonstrated in our country. The Belgian Presidency also advocates exchanging this data between member states to ensure traceability when a used car is exported to another member state.

Belgium is already setting a good example in this area. In 2023, Car-Pass provided 371,388 counter readings of a total of 32,098 vehicles to our partner countries the Netherlands, Slovakia and Latvia. This will make it difficult for fraudsters to undetectably tamper with the odometer of a vehicle exported to these countries.

Michel Peelman, managing director of the non-profit organisation Car-Pass says: "More than 60 million used cars are sold every year in the EU and every year European consumers pay billions of euros too much because of odometerl fraud. I am therefore very pleased that Belgium is putting this issue back on the European agenda. We can share our expertise in this area with other countries. A European solution takes time, of course. That is why I advocate quickly concluding bilateral agreements with our neighbours Germany and France, as we did with the Netherlands at the time. With that, fraud involving vehicles imported from the Netherlands fell by 90% in just a few years."