Environmental bonus

In January 2009, in the framework of the Economic Programme II, the federal government adopted a funding programme for the award of an environmental bonus to the value of €2,500. This was granted as a once-off subsidy on application to BAFA where a private car owner bought a new or one-year-old car and at the same time could prove that he or she had had a car scrapped that was at least nine years old. The objective of this bonus was to replace old passenger vehicles with high emissions of classical pollutants with new, more efficient vehicles. The funding amount was increased to €5bn due to the very high level of demand. A total of approximately two million passenger vehicles were subsidised.