Romania’s government-run Rabla Program, designed to renew the pool of cars in the country and encourage the purchase of energy-saving and producing solutions, has changed dramatically for 2026, and now includes two concurrent funding lines for environmentally-friendly cars and storage batteries worth RON 700 million (EUR 134 million) in total.
The new program will finance only private individuals, exclusively for the purchase of cars produced and assembled in Europe. Roughly RON 300 million is to be allocated to this end. The program parameters will therefore leave out Chinese car brands, which are gaining an increasing share of the market, according to TVRInfo.
The Association of Automobile Manufacturers and Importers criticized the new Rabla Program, arguing that cars manufactured in China are already subject to additional taxes imposed by the European Commission. The new conditions also affect car manufacturers in Romania that produce some models in China, Morocco, and Turkey, but they may be exempt from the new rules. The financing guidelines are to be published after the approval of the Environmental Fund Administration’s budget.
Last year, the Rabla Auto 2025 program subsidized the purchase of full-electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles with roughly EUR 3,500, down from EUR 5,000 in 2023.
The state will also subsidize the purchase of storage batteries with roughly RON 400 million from the Environmental Fund Administration’s budget. Unlike previous years, no money will go to encourage the purchase of photovoltaic panels.
In recent years, Romania’s energy grid has expanded with numerous “prosumers,” individuals and companies who produce rather than consume electricity thanks to such panels, but the storage component remains largely underdeveloped.
“For 2026, we are placing a greater emphasis on storage solutions (batteries), not just on production. In this way, we are responding to the massive increase in the number of prosumers and the pressure placed on the national distribution grid,” said the interim minister of environment, Diana Buzoianu.
(Photo source: Diana Buzoianu on Facebook)
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