BRUSSELS (AFP) - New car sales in Europe plunged in November by more than a quarter as financial and economic turmoil hit the industry hard, the European automakers association ACEA announced on Tuesday.
With consumers jittery and credit hard to come by, carmakers saw the sharpest fall in sales since 1999 in November, before ACEA's data included figures from the new EU member states.
The slump was made even worse by the fact that there were on average two fewer working days for selling cars in November compared to the same month in 2007.
"New passenger car registrations in Europe fell by 25.8 percent in November compared to the same month of last year, declining for the seventh month in a row, mirroring the financial and economic crises," ACEA said in a statement.
ACEA said new registrations fell to 932,537 cars in November in the 28 countries it reviewed -- the 27 EU member states, minus Cyprus and Malta, plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
That brought the number of cars sold in Europe from the beginning of the year through November to 13,788,256, down 7.1 percent from the same period in 2007.
The trade association said that all markets saw weaker car sales with the rare exceptions of Finland, Poland and the Czech Republic.
While the European car industry is not in as dire straits as its US counterpart, it too has been calling for state aid in the face of tough economic conditions.
With new EU rules in the works for lower carbon emissions from cars, ACEA appealled in October for 40 billion euros in loans, not grants, to help the industry develop green technologies.
Those calls appear to be gaining some traction as French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said on Monday before the European Parliament that the EU could not stand by idly as Washington mulls a massive bailout for US carmakers.
"We can't sit on our hands while others are doing things. We should be concerned about what is going on on the other side of the Atlantic," Lagarde told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg.
"We should maybe consider taking action to restructure certain sectors before it's too late," she added. "This sort of decision should be taken with respect to what is going on elsewhere in the world."
The White House said on Monday it was studying options for a bailout of the US auto industry without indicating when an announcement would be made.
The Big Three US automakers -- General Motors, Ford and Chrysler -- have warned that without a package of loans, millions of jobs could be lost, which would send ripple effects through the nation's already faltering economy.
