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Victoria Mindova

The Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Changes announced that a change is introduced in how the road tax will be calculated. The tax base will be set according to the car category (4 classes in accordance with the manufacturing year – A, B, C, D) and the power of the engine—in order words for cars less than 1400cc, owners will have to pay less. The active until now law treats all class B, C, and D cars equally and adds a fixed amount to the tax base, independently of their power. This way the increase in the final amount of the tax is 400% for less powerful cars and with only 20% more for powerful cars (up to 2400cc).

With the new introduction the owed tax varies between €0 and €68 for cars with engines of up to 301 cubic cm, from €28 to €96 for cars with engines of up to 785cc, from €94 to €187 for cars with engines of 786cc to 1375cc, from €786 to €325 for cars up to 1928cc, from €428 to €671 for engines of 1929cc to 2357cc and from €562 to €880 for the most powerful cars of 2357cc and up.

“With the new changes we brought back the logic of calculating road tax, so that more economic cars have less taxes and more powerful ones, which consume more gas – higher taxes,” explained minister of environment, energy and climate changes Tina Birbili in front of journalists after her meeting with finance minister Georgios Papakonstantinou.

The other important decision the two ministers made is to immediately stop the scrap financial program. According to data presented by minister Papakonstantinou the program for exchanging an old car for a new one costs to the state €400 million per year. Papakonstantinou explained that Greece is not a country with powerful car makers and its economy does not depend of the new car market. The minister stressed that in a period of financial crisis such a program burdens the state budget and also, according to held surveys, the introduction of this program does not contribute in any way for keeping the environment clean.

All citizens, who have taken part in this program until now will be compensated. The Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Changes made a proposal half of the amount to be paid back in two unlimited public transportation cards. It is expected that this will stimulate citizens to use the public transportation instead of their cars every day. Except for this, the cards increase the final value of the financial aid with 20%.

Regarding the green circle program minister Birbili announced that its introduction is postponed to 2011. The reason for the delay is the lack of developed city infrastructure, which will encourage people to leave their cars and start using public transportation. The construction of bicycle lanes is planned for the near future, which will improve the road networks and the conditions for public transportation. Another plan is to introduce cards, which will report harmful car emissions.