The unexpectedly high take-up of the German government’s scrappage scheme has led to an unexpected side effect – a boost to new car sales in Poland.
More than a million Germans have applied for the 2500 euro (£2330) subsidy for replacing a nine-year-old car for a new or nearly new one, and a significant number of these applicants have opted to cross into neighbouring Poland to buy their cars.
The combination of the fact that the German scheme doesn’t require the new cars to be purchased within Germany, and the weakness of the Polish zloty – which has fallen by around a third against the euro in the past year – has resulted in more than 10 per cent of new cars sold in Poland being bought by Germans.
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