Nauseda against taxing polluting cars in Lithuania yet

In his words, poorer people now have the most polluting cars.

"On the one hand, a car tax is meaningful to achieve environmental goals, air pollution goals, and in terms of climate change, and in that sense, taxing CO2 would be a possible solution, (…) but those people have little money and they cannot afford better cars," Nauseda said in an interview with the DELFI in Focus program, aired on Wednesday.

"To tax them now because they were not so lucky in life and don’t have sufficient income, well, it would really be a very anti-social solution and I would not back such a solution today," he said.

The future president said he would consider proposals to tax cars based on their power, and the amount of emitted CO2 could be taxed gradually.

The Lithuanian government plans to pay 1,000 euros in compensation to residents who decide to replace their old cars with those less polluting.

Politicians in Lithuania have in recent years been discussing the possibility to tax polluting cars, and Finance Minister Vilius Sapoka said last month the government plans to return to this issue as early as this year.