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End-of-Life Vehicles: Scrappage bonus still a matter for debate
| | The German federal government has again extended the scrappage bonus. The bonus for a new car buyer who has his or her car scrapped, provided it is at least nine years old, is now to be granted till the end of the year. There is, however, a certain amount of controversy regarding how much bonus should be paid after 31 May till the end of December. The federal government came to a decision right before Easter.
By Mareike Kuhn
Till now a new car buyer has received a 2,500-euro bonus in return for dispatching his or her old car to the scrapheap. In order to prevent criminal misuse of this bonus the motor vehicle’s registration certificate is retracted so that the vehicle cannot be sold to foreign buyers. Various authorities, including the Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation, had previously warned of misuse of the bonus. The environmental protection organisation Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) spoke of a “development scheme for organised crime”.
“This extension is not only an instrument for kick-starting the economy, it also makes sense from an environmental point of view,” commented Jürgen Karle, President of the steel recycling association BDSV, with satisfaction. However, dismantling companies should demand a payment of up to 100 euros from the vehicles’ last owners on delivery if the vehicle has already been stripped of its valuable parts. The president of the BDSV states the reason for the additional payment as being the difficult sales situation for steel scrap and the severe price decline. The Federal Minister of Transport Wolfgang Tiefensee sees the extension of the bonus as a “good and necessary investment impulse for the automotive industry.”
Photo: Stena Metall
End-of-Life Vehicles sitting on a srapyard
But the scrappage bonus does not necessarily enjoy undivided popularity. The German environmental organisation Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND) is calling for an immediate stop to the scrappage bonus because hundreds of thousands of intact vehicles are ending up in the scrapyards. This “state-subsidised throwaway mentality” is only leading to a waste of resources. Furthermore, the scrappage bonus is not supplying the automotive industry with an incentive to change its model policies, says the BUND in criticism of the bonus policy.
Leif Miller, Federal President of the environmental organisation Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU), sees the extension of the bonus as a “product of the indulgence of lobbyists and politicians in an election campaign.” The motorists’ advice association Verkehrsclub Deutschland (VCD) also speaks out against the “car-focused economic stabilisation policy” of the federal government. Gerd Lottsiepen, transportation policy speaker of the VCD: “The scrappage bonus creates an artificial demand boom that will only bring forward the point in time at which a new car is purchased.”
Since April it has been possible to apply for the scrappage bonus for old cars online and the stampede that partly paralysed the internet website of the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control during the first few days has not lost its impetus. According to Federal Office sources one million applications are still pending. More than 500,000 of these alone are reservation applications that were entered within the first three days after the launching of the online reservation function.
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