The transport ministry is “preparing decrees” to order recalls of vehicles with faulty airbags, Minister Alexis Vafeades said on Saturday.

Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency, he said they will be published “pending the opinion of the legal service”, and that the decrees will “concern the management of the entire situation”.

This, he said, will include “among other things, the identification of vehicles which are subject to recalls, how the recall will proceed, what the risk assessment will be, and, based on the risk assessment, what actions people should take”.

“With the decrees, we want to cover all the issues which will arise from the situation and which we will manage, not only how we will handle the legislation. The approach will be comprehensive,” he said.

Asked by the Cyprus Mail to explain the situation regarding present and future recalls and the possibility of cars being blocked from undergoing MOT inspections, he said there will be “no hard and fast rule” on how these decisions will be made.

“Decisions over whether some models will be immobilised, or whether they will not be able to undergo MOT inspections, or even over whether they will be recalled, cannot fall under a one-size-fits-all policy. The decrees will be specialised, and they will depend on each vehicle’s circumstances,” he said.

He referenced a similar situation in Australia, wherein “they studied the data, conducted risk assessments, and in the end decided to recall vehicles which had just one type of Takata airbag”.

To this end, he said, his ministry would issue specific decrees on an ad hoc basis, rather than catch-all recalls.

Parliament had in December approved a law which allows Vafeades to issue decrees to recall defective vehicles in light of recent issues with faulty airbags.

The law also allows him to unilaterally set the time period for measures to be taken for defective vehicles to be repaired, and for the suspension of MOT certificates for vehicles which contain defective or unsuitable components.

It is expected that Vafeades will issue the first such decree next month.

Earlier Disy MP Nikos Sykas had warned that  thousands of cars on Cyprus’ roads may have defective airbags.

He said the road transport department had informed him that there are around 12,000 cars on Cyprus’ roads which are equipped with faulty airbags made by Takata, a company which faced a worldwide recall campaign.

However, he said, this figure only covers vehicles imported from the United Kingdom and the European Union, and “no one knows” how many cars imported from other countries are equipped with faulty Takata airbags.

Additionally, he said, despite the fact that dealerships had given assurances that they would not charge for checks on airbags in cars they were selling, some people had complained they were being charged as much as €160 and then told their airbags were faulty.

He did note, however, that there is no law which obliges dealerships not to charge for the service.

The issue of faulty Takata airbags has been ongoing for almost two years, with it believed that the death of 24-year-old Kyriakos Oxynos in January 2023 was caused in part by a faulty airbag.

More recently, it is now believed that the death of 19-year-old Styliani Giorgalli in October may have been caused by a faulty Takata airbag.

An autopsy found that Giorgalli had bled out, with then Famagusta district police spokesman Steve Theodoulou saying, “the cause of death was a haemorrhagic shock as a result of a rupture of the ascending aorta and lung caused by a metal object”.

The fault is related to exposure to high levels of heat or humidity, with Takata airbags having a tendency to explode when released under such circumstances. This then shoots the airbag’s metal inflator outwards and in the direction of the person it was designed to protect, potentially causing further injuries or, in some cases, death.