A bill will be put to public consultation in Greece which foresees the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (IAPR) using digital means to conduct checks that vehicle owners possess mandatory insurance and that their vehicles have passed inspection (KTEO), according to reports at OT.gr.
The bill is sponsored by Greece’s Ministry of Finance and effectively implements an EU Directive which mandates that all vehicle owners have car insurance, which is no news.
However, what is different is the way that Greece will conduct controls on whether or not owners possess insurance and have passed necessary controls, as well as the way fines will be doled out.
Until now, inspections had been conducted every five to ten years, or, through chance police roadblocks and physical side-of-the-road inspections.
Now, the bill envisions using an integrated digital system, run through the IAPR, which would cross-reference online data and process it every two months or so to ensure compliance and issue fines, says OT.gr.
According to available data, it is estimated that around 500,000 vehicles are circulating Greece’s roads without insurance, while it is unknown how many have not passed inspection (KTEO).
The report at OT.gr explains that digitally integrated system will use data from IAPR, the file of vehicles in circulation held by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, the stolen vehicles registry at the Ministry of Citizen Protection, records of deceased from the Ministry of the Interior, lists of recycled vehicles held by the Alternative Vehicle Management of Greece and records of insured vehicles as per the Information Center of the Auxiliary Fund Insurance of Liability Arising out of Motor Accidents.
Graduated fines are envisioned for owners that do not pay the road tax by December 31 of each year in an effort to incentivize violators to pay fines as soon as possible and comply with the law.
