Duitse maatregelen voor auto-industrie hebben redelijk postitieve invloed (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - As citizens around Europe wonder at the amount of money being spent on bank bail-out schemes, one measure at least appears to be having an immediate and tangible effect.
Despite a fall in other EU markets, new car registrations in Germany rose 21.5 per cent in February compared to the same month in 2008, due largely to a scrapping scheme introduced by the government under its second €50 billion stimulus plan announced in January.
German citizens have rushed to avail themselves of the scheme, under which they can trade in any car of at least nine years for €2500 when also buying a new car. The scheme is also producing some positive effects in other EU member states.
"At the informal council last Sunday, one of the prime ministers said that, thanks to the German scrapping system, there are many car factories in his country that were going to shut down but are now not going to shut down," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso i on Wednesday (5 March).
"This is a typical example of European synergies," he continued.
As well as providing a boost to the economy, car-scrapping schemes have been billed by EU governments as a measure to tackle pollution. They argue that older and less environmentally friendly cars are replaced by newer models that emit less CO2.
Environmentalists have questioned this logic, but so far the German scrapping scheme has driven sales of smaller models.
"If you look at the trend on the Germany market, this measure is encouraging people to buy cars that are less powerful, less polluting and more energy efficient," said Mr Barroso.
Manufacturers of larger cars such as BMW have criticised the scrapping measure as distorting competition.
EU picture less rosy
But other EU car markets are not fairing well, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA), representatives of which met with Mr Barroso and industry commissioner Gunter Verheugen on Wednesday evening.
"Our forecast for production is 25 percent down in 2009 compared with 2008," ACEA president Carlos Ghosn said, clarifying that this figure did not include Germany.
Figures presented by Mr Ghosn showed February car registrations down in all other EU car producing economies compared to the same month last year.
In Spain registrations dropped 48.8 per cent, in Sweden 31.3 per cent, Italy 24.4 per cent, Finland 40.3 per cent, France 13.1 per cent and in the UK 22.4 per cent.
Mr Goshn urged a "jump-start of financing as fast as possible," saying the total needed is €40 billion but that so far the industry has received nothing.
The French government has pledged low interest loans of €6 billion to its car sector, whereas the UK government says it will provide €2.6 billion (£2.3bn).