Minister of Transport Yiannis Karousos will have to overcome certain obstacles as regards the government’s scrappage programme that involves the subsidy of replacement of old vehicles with new and used cars, Phileleftheros reports.
Despite the Minister’s intention to present the amended proposal to the Council of Ministers for discussion, the latter advised that this should be put on hold.
The first issue that needs to be resolved is whether the EU wishes to provide any remarks, which would require the Ministry of Finance to communicate to Brussels the plan to amend the scheme due to accountability resulting from the 3 mil European financing towards the programme.
It was initially said that there were other instances in the EU where the replacement of old cars with used cars was allowed, however, investigations showed that there is no such precedent in an EU member country.
Another issue to be overcome by the Ministry is the criticism that emerged from the deviance of the scheme from its core purpose that is to reduce pollution in member states, as the Cypriot version allows the purchase of used vehicles with engines more polluting than the EU norm.
According to Phileleftheros, Karousos is currently being lobbied by interests involved in the scheme, namely used car importers and new car importers, and will hold relevant meetings early next week.
Read more:
https://in-cyprus.com/e1000-subsidy-for-the-purchase-of-used-vehicles/
