EVwire brief: Belgium is all-in for Tesla FSD Supervised. Annick De Ridder, Flanders' Minister of Mobility, has signed off on the system, accepting the provisional EU type-approval that the Dutch authority RDW granted back in April.
De Ridder announced the decision on X on Wednesday, June 10th, telling Tesla fans they were getting "the scoop" and posting a photo of the signed letter. Because type-approval calls in Belgium run through the regions, her signature in Flanders carries across the whole country.
“I therefore decide to accept the provisional EU type approval for Tesla Full Self Driving-Supervised in accordance with Article 39, point 5, of Regulation (EU) 2018/858 for the Belgian territory. This is based on the premise that the driver is and remains responsible at all times for the control of the vehicle.”
Here's De Ridder's announcement on X:
In the letter, dated June 10, De Ridder leans on that advice. She writes that the testing showed the system reading a wide range of traffic situations and responding in a defensive, cautious, anticipatory way, taking account of pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers.
She also notes it can, in some situations, react faster and more consistently than a human driver, while stressing the standard caveat: the person behind the wheel stays responsible for the car at all times.
Here’s the Minister of Mobility’s letter in original Dutch.
And here’s her letter translated into English.
Context:
De Ridder's signature caps a fast few weeks. In May, Flanders cleared Tesla to run a roughly 5,000-km FSD Supervised test program on public roads, built around how the system copes with Belgian-specific quirks like tram tracks, bicycle streets, and dense urban signage. Tesla cleared the distance in about two weeks with a three-car fleet, and the file went to De Ridder's administration for its advice.
With De Ridder’s signature secured, Belgium is now poised to become the fifth European country to accept FSD Supervised, after the Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia, and Denmark. The European split is widening: while Flanders moves ahead, the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Sweden, and Italy have all said they would rather wait for a coordinated EU decision, with the next Technical Committee for Motor Vehicles talks due June 30.
Source: Annick De Ridder on X
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