Daniel Constantin, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of the Environment, announced that those who want to buy electric cars through the Rabla Plus 2017 program will benefit from a bonus of 10.000 euros, according to an interview given for the radio station Europa FM, writes GreenReport.

“Through the Environment Fund we want to open a measure to support those who want to buy electric cars. Last year we had a sum of nearly 5.000 euros for those who wanted to buy an electric car. There wasn’t a large request, but some steps have been taken. For 2017 we want to provide 10.000 euros for each electric vehicle purchased”, said Daniel Constantin.

According to the Minister of Environment, the grant for purchasing of electric cars cannot be accessed by legal entities because this would be considered a state aid, “but discussions on this issue continue”.

Regarding the Rabla program for the national fleet renewal, the Minister Daniel Constantin also said that in 2017, the budget – sized for the purchase of 25.000 new cars – will be of 220 million lei, similar to the one in 2016, and the value of the voucher may increase slightly.

The budget of the Environment Fund Administration (AFM), which provides the funding for the Rabla and Rabla Plus programs, will be approved in the next two weeks. Also, the Ministry of Environment wants to provide local government funds to purchase electric buses.

The money could be ensured from the AFM’s budget or from the accumulated funds from the Ministry of Finance from the CO2 emission certificates. Their value is one billion lei.