The Netherlands wants to introduce new national rules for light electric vehicles, more specifically e-cargobikes and e-scooters, called the “LEV-kader.” LEVA-EU believes these rules are illegal and bad for the sector and is asking the Dutch Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management, Vincent Karremans, to cancel them.

We need your support. If your company works with light electric vehicles, please add your name to our letter below. The more companies that sign, the stronger our message to the Minister.

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What we’re asking you to do

We have prepared a letter addressed to Minister Karremans. That letter is here below.

• Dutch version
• English version

If you’re unable to open the letter, send us a mail and we will send you the letter directly.

This is how you can join our action:

• Please read the letter carefully.
• Decide whether you agree with the content and whether you want to support the call for withdrawal.
• If the answer to both questions is “yes”, fill in the form below and submit it through the website.
• Should you wish, you can also come round to our booth at Eurobike, Hall 12 F50, to sign the letter there.

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Why the Framework has to go

The Netherlands is about to impose a purely national approval regime on light electric vehicles — e-cargo bikes, e-scooters, pedal-assist cycles and comparable vehicles. If it goes ahead, manufacturers will have to build a special “Dutch” version of vehicles that are already lawfully sold across Europe, and submit them to a second national inspection on top of the CE marking they already carry. This is exactly the kind of fragmentation that the European single market was designed to prevent — and, ironically, exactly the fragmentation the Netherlands itself has been warning against in Brussels.

It conflicts with Dutch law. The framework would require approval for vehicles that Dutch law itself explicitly exempts, including pedal-assist cargocycles up to 25 km/h and 250 W. Subjecting those vehicles to approval is at odds with the Netherlands’ own Regeling Voertuigen.

It conflicts with EU law. Light electric vehicles that fall outside Regulation (EU) 168/2013 are already covered by a broad package of harmonised EU legislation — the Machinery Directive and Machinery Regulation, the EMC, RoHS, Radio Equipment and Low Voltage Directives, the Batteries Regulation and the Market Surveillance Regulation. The Machinery Directive is explicit: Member States may not prohibit, restrict or impede the placing on the market of machinery that complies with it. A national type-approval on top of CE marking does precisely that. What a requirement is called does not matter; what matters is what it does — and a product-safety requirement dressed up as “road admission” is still caught by EU law. Where a Member State genuinely doubts a product’s safety, the proper tool is market surveillance and the safeguard clause, not a blanket prior approval that ignores conformity already demonstrated.

It threatens the industry with lasting damage. If the LEV-framework is pushed through, it will cause serious and, in some cases, irreversible harm to the companies that design, build and supply LEVs and LEV components in the Netherlands and across Europe. Some businesses will not survive it. And if the survivors are later forced to switch back from a Dutch regime to a European one, the damage will only deepen — slowing the very shift to sustainable urban mobility that LEVs make possible.

The Netherlands is contradicting itself

On 4 December 2025, the Netherlands raised light electric mobility at the EU Transport Council, supported by fifteen other Member States, and stated:

“It is clear that we do not need 27 different types of national regulation for fairly comparable vehicles on our roads. European action is needed here. […] The declaration calls above all for the harmonisation of a type-approval-like system for these emerging PMDs, without any concession to safety.”

We wholeheartedly share the principle: a patchwork of 27 national regimes is the wrong answer, and safety must come first. But the Netherlands cannot credibly warn against national fragmentation in Brussels while building its own national framework at home. It has to choose: the European route it advocates, or the national route it is actually walking. It cannot be both.

There is a better way

The existing harmonised EU framework works — millions of light electric vehicles are already on Europe’s roads without structural technical problems. The real issues come from illegal products, for which market surveillance exists to address, and from infrastructure and traffic that are out of balance, which is solved by giving LEVs and other vulnerable road users more and safer space.

What the sector needs is not a national workaround but a dedicated EU regulation for light electric vehicles — one that, like the Machinery Directive does for machinery, sets essential safety requirements for all LEVs, complemented by harmonised standards and appropriate compliance methods, and developed in close consultation with the sector. That is also what the Commission’s own Expert Group on Urban Mobility recommended back in 2024. The way forward is for the Netherlands to shelve the LEV-framework and open a dialogue with Commissioner Séjourné and DG GROW on exactly such a regulation.

We are also formally requesting a meeting for the Minister to consult the sector before any further decisions are taken. As a constructive suggestion, we are proposed the International Cargo Bike Festival at the Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs in Utrecht on 12–13 October 2026 — which brings together manufacturers, operators and experts from across Europe — as an ideal occasion for such a consultation. Should that timing not suit the Ministry, we have offered to meet at the Ministry on alternative dates and to align with the Minister’s availability.

Safety and harmonisation: yes. But with the right instrument, and together with the sector that knows these vehicles best. Stand with us.

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LEVA-EU vzw — Jan Baptist Guinardstraat 32, B-9000 Ghent — annick@leva-eu.com — www.leva-eu.com – +32 475 500 588