At the end of March, the Ministry of Transport and Maritime Affairs of Montenegro will adopt amendments to the Rulebook on technical requirements for vehicles that are imported or put on the market for the first time, which will prohibit the import of vehicles older than 15 years in this country.
The application of this measure will start from July 1 this year and the import of “Euro 4” vehicles will be prohibited, and the minimum standard for import will be “Euro 5”, which includes vehicles produced from 2009 to 2013, the Vijesti portal reports.
Montenegro currently has restrictions that imported new cars must meet the “Euro 6” standard, and second-hand cars must meet the “Euro 4” standard.
The MSP emphasized that the aim of this measure is to renew the vehicle fleet, and that the import restriction does not apply to existing older vehicles on domestic roads, so they can circulate as long as they undergo the registration process.
They pointed out that the analysis they did with the mechanical engineering faculty showed that the average age of vehicles in Montenegro is about 16 years.
The MSP states that until 2020, a large part of imports will be vehicles 12 to 15 years old, up to 60 percent. They point out that this has changed in the last three years, and now there is a drop in the import of “Euro 4” vehicles to 35 percent, with this difference being transferred in favor of “Euro 6” standard vehicles.
Last year, 242.59 thousand passenger cars were registered.
About 9.5 percent of the total number of registered passenger vehicles that were registered last year were produced during the 1990s. There are 22.85 thousand of them, which means that every tenth passenger vehicle was produced in the last century.
Last year, the “Eco-Fund” offered subsidies in the amount of 253.5 thousand euros to citizens, businessmen and the public sector for electric and hybrid vehicles.
During the last year, they had a total of four public tenders or programs, through which a total of 400 thousand euros were available. They explained that through these programs, users can receive 7.5 thousand euros for electric vehicles, while the amount for hybrid vehicles is four thousand euros.
Photo: archive