On May, 24 the Parliamentary Committee on European Integration supported the bills № 5561 and № 5562, developed by the MPs from UKROP in cooperation with the representatives of NGO ZAVTRA and community “Free people have cars”. These documents remove a number of restrictions on the import of used cars from the European Union to Ukraine and replace compliance with the standard “Euro” by the obligatory technical inspection.
Introducing bills at the committee meeting, the MP from UKROP Oleksandr Dubinin cited the example of Poland, where the car market was developing similarly to Ukraine. In this country in 2004 they lifted restrictions on the import of used cars. During the first 10 years after this the Poles had imported 10 million cars and budget got enormous revenues. And even now among the cars, bought by the Polish citizens abroad, vehicles older than 10 years still prevail (more than 50% in 2015-2016). Thus the argument of those who inhibit the adoption of such legislation in Ukraine in the interests of domestic automakers stating that the Europeans buy abroad only new cars that meet modern environmental standards, are groundless, said the representative of UKROP. Moreover, current restrictions, including the number of cars that can be imported by one person per year, have created many shady schemes of imports, due to which the budget receives less funds.
“Adoption of these bills actually brings us closer to the European standards. The Ukrainians will thank us for the opportunity to buy affordable cars, and the state will receive substantial funds due to the legal registration of vehicles,” said Oleksandr Dubinin.
The MP has also thanked the Committee members and the officials, who were present at the meeting, for supporting the documents. At the same time one of the coauthors of the bills, activist of the community “Free people have cars” Dmytro Fedorenko said that this decision of the Committee on European integration is a step to the future victory of everyone who wants the Ukrainians to finally drive decent transport.
“This is another step to getting support of the relevant committee, which should have no questions while considering the bills in the matter. In fact, we are now collecting the package of documents for it. We are confident that these bills will be voted. There is just no other way, as since independence because of the greed of some individuals Ukraine has not created a decent national car, but people need transport,” said Dmytro Fedorenko.
