Greece: Ban on old cars

Greece is fed up with dirty cars and is introducing punitive tariffs for anyone importing combustion cars with old technology. In a new law, all vehicles imported into Greece that do not meet Euro class 6 will be subject to a penalty fee. The fee will affect Euro 5 and Euro 4 vehicles. 1000 euros will be due for the former and as much as 3000 euros for the latter. The Euro 1, 2 or 3 emission standards, on the other hand, may no longer be imported into Hellas at all. The only exceptions are vintage cars that are thirty years old or older.

The Greek government's argument: the Greek car fleet is simply too old to allow any more old vehicles into the country. Greece's vehicles are among the oldest in the EU, surpassed only by Lithuania, Estonia and Romania. With the new law, however, Greece is violating EU law. As long as used cars with a Euro class below 6 may be sold in their own country, the sales ban may not apply to vehicles imported from the EU. Greek used car dealers, who are directly affected by the punitive tariffs, are also invoking this law. They had already filed a complaint in 2020, when a fee based on the age of the vehicle was already introduced once.

Apart from the fact that the duties naturally create a shortage of used cars on the Greek market, the introduction of clean cars could speed up the transition of the fleet to one that no longer pollutes the country. But it probably remains a pious hope that those who want to buy a foreign used car will now opt for a new one.

For in Greece itself there are only two environmental zones, both in Athens, the smaller one applying permanently. There, the ability to enter depends on the number plate, not the Euro class. The second and larger one is only active during pollution peaks, even if the values are exceeded, only vehicles registered before 1999 are banned. Only when the rules in the environmental zones are tightened there will ultimately also automatically reduce the demand for dirty used cars.