TRIESTE - Europe will examine US measures to help troubled American auto makers to make sure they do not harm the Euroepan industry, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday.

"We will examine how the United States are going to support the auto industry because we do not want European industry to suffer harm," she told a news conference in this northeastern Italian city, alongside Italy's Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Democrat US lawmakers are pushing for the government to allocate 25 billion dollars (20 billion euros) to save the three main US auto makers - Ford, General Motors and Chrysler - in addition to a separate 25 billion dollars already earmarked for them.

The White House said Monday it opposes handing automakers this money out of an emergency financial bailout package.

On Friday, the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, said the EU would complain to the World Trade Organisation if it deemed any prospective US measures for its auto makers to be illegal state aid.

Millions of jobs are threatened in the United States as the industry's crippling losses are exacerbated by the deepening economic crisis.