2008-10: SNCB in Firing Line
BELGIUM: Early last month La Libre Belgique published excerpts from an interim report drawn up by the Audit Commission (Cour des Comptes) which said Belgian National Railways had broken European rules on public financing.
Specifically, the newspaper highlighted a sum of €426m forming part of a €510m government grant intended to provide SNCB's operating arm with an increase in capital, but the money, according to the report, had been used for commercial purposes. The newspaper reported that €244·8m had been granted on an unsecured basis to boost the funding of commercial passenger services, and a further €181·2m had been provided to the freight business B-Cargo as an internal loan. When official requests were made for a breakdown of SNCB's accounts, they were either ignored or only partially answered, according to the newspaper.
