The European Commissioner for Taxes and Customs, Laszlo Kovacs, declared while in Bucharest that ”Romania must change its legislation in the first registration tax area and it has at most only six months to do so“. In Kovacs’ vision, the tax has three problems: it discriminates, it doesn’t correlate the age and the pollution degree of the vehicle with the amount to be paid and it only covers a limited period in a car’s lifetime.
The Public Finances Ministry’s representatives replied that they negotiate with the European Comission’s experts in order to find a solution. Sebastian Vladescu, Minister of Finances, admitted that the tax is discriminatory, but said that the Government has no intention to abolish the tax: ”We want to find solutions together with the European Comission, but we want to keep the tax, as an environmental protection.“
