The first car registration tax for Euro 4 cars will be suspended for one year, starting January 1, 2009

The government will decide to suspend the first registration car tax, now known as the environment tax, for new Euro 4 cars for one year starting January 1, 2009 to protect jobs, Romanian PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu declared. The executive will send a written notification to the European Commission informing them about the new measure and explaining the main reasons for which it was adopted. Previously, Romanian President Traian Basescu declared that the tax might be suspended for more than six months and added that the measure was necessary.

Both the President and the Prime Minister discussed the issue on Wednesday morning. President Basescu officially visited the Dacia Pitesti factory where he had talks with the company’s leadership. The visit comes as the factory announced that they would cut their activity due to the financial international crisis.

Dacia will shut down the factory for the period of November 20 – December 7 due to the high decreases on the car market and employees will only receive 85% of their salary, a company official announced last week.