Maltese Drivers Face Annual VRT Nightmare as EU Plan Sparks Island Outcry

**MEP Warns Annual VRT Checks Would Unfairly Hit Maltese Motorists**

Maltese drivers could soon find themselves shelling out more cash and queuing more often if Brussels pushes through plans to make vehicle roadworthiness tests an annual ordeal. Nationalist MEP Peter Agius has slammed the proposal, arguing it would “unfairly penalise” islanders who already grapple with Europe’s second-oldest car fleet and some of the highest fuel prices on the continent.

“Malta isn’t Germany,” Agius told Hot Malta from Strasbourg. “We don’t have an autobahn, we have 30-year-old Mazdas held together with prayer and parish-parking dents. Forcing these cars onto ramps every 365 days is a tax on working families, not a safety upgrade.”

The draft EU directive, now trudging through committee corridors, would scrap Malta’s current two-year Vehicle Roadworthiness Test (VRT) interval for private cars under ten years old. Instead, every windscreen disc would expire after 12 months, doubling both the €29.88 test fee and the ritual pilgrimage to Ħal Far or Gudja licensing centres—already a national pastime of sighs, sweats and instant-coffee vending machines.

Agius, who sits on the European Parliament’s transport committee, tabled a raft of amendments last week seeking island exemptions. He points out that Malta’s average vehicle age is 14.7 years, compared with the EU mean of 11.8. “We’re driving hand-me-downs from Rome and Rugby,” he laughs. “Annual tests won’t magic away the rust; they’ll just magic away the disposable income.”

Local reaction has been swift. In bar-side debates from Siġġiewi to St Julian’s, the prospect of yearly inspections has landed like a fresh pothole. “My Citroën is older than my son’s secondary-school blazer,” fumes Sandra Pace, 52, a Zurrieq pharmacy assistant. “It passes because I service it, not because some bureaucrat in Brussels wants a Christmas bonus. Another test means another day off work, another babysitter, another headache.”

The Malta Automobile Club reports a 40% spike in calls since news broke. President Reuben Lanfranco warns the plan could backfire environmentally: “Owners facing steeper compliance costs may postpone scrappage, clinging to high-emission bangers even longer.” Mechanics, however, see a silver lining. “Bring it on,” shrugs Marco ‘il-Meccaniku’ Farrugia, whose Qormi garage is wallpapered with faded number-plates. “More tests, more worn brake-pads, more bread on the table.”

Yet the social fabric is stitched with small cars doing big duties. Grandmothers ferry chapel choir robes in ’90s hatchbacks; teenage Deliveroo riders zig-zag on 125 cc heroes; fishermen park battered Toyotas atop Valletta wharf each dawn. Doubling inspection frequency risks fraying those threads, critics argue, especially in a country where 82% of households own at least one vehicle—highest in the EU—and public transport, despite recent strides, still feels like a foreign concept to many.

Transport Minister Aaron Farrugia has promised to fight Malta’s corner in Council negotiations, echoing Agius’s call for “proportionality”. A government briefing note seen by this newspaper invokes derogations already granted to Cyprus and remote Greek islands, citing “insular traffic patterns and lower average mileage”. Brussels sources hint a compromise—perhaps retaining biennial tests for cars under 15 years—could emerge this autumn.

Until then, Maltese motorists nurse their clunkers and their cynicism. At the Marsa testing lane, Charles Saliba, 68, revs his 1992 Mini Mayfair like a time-capsule. “I love this car more than my ex-wife,” he grins. “If they want to see it every year, fine. But they should pay for the petrol I waste sitting here, not me.”

As the sun sets over another snaking queue, the message from Malta is clear: annual VRT may look like road safety on paper, but on these roads it smells like another levy on the little guy. And in a nation where the steering wheel is a second living-room, that won’t pass inspection without a fight.