Romanian Finance minister Sebastian Vladescu is in Brussels on Monday for talks with European Commission representatives on the controversial first car registration tax applied in Romania. According to Environment minister Sulfina Barbu, who along Vladescu supports the tax despite EC pressure to drop it, the Finance minister will discuss the level of the tax and not its elimination.

The new tax, which favors importers of new cars, was introduced when the new Fiscal Code entered force at the beginning of this year.

According to Barbu, there is talk in Brussels already about a first car registration tax to be valid in all EU member states.

She said there was no provisions in any official document of the European Commission that showed such a tax breaches Romania’s EU accession treaty.