Car sales in Europe are expected to fall by 10 per cent in Europe as incentives for scrapping old vehicles are withdrawn, dpa cited the European Union commissioner for industry as warning today. Antonio Tajani was talking at a meeting of EU industry ministers he called in Brussels to seek a European response to the crisis, after General Motors' subsidiary Opel announced big job cuts in Germany and Belgium and as Italy's Fiat was planning to close a plant in Sicily. "At the end of 2009 we experienced a small fall in sales: -1.5 per cent compared to 2008 ... in 2010 a big challenge awaits us. "National support measures (scrapping incentives in particular) will be gradually withdrawn and a further sales reduction in the order of 10 per cent is expected," Tajani said in his introductory remarks, which were distributed to the press. "We expect, therefore, a negative fallout on car makers' output levels, financial results, research spending and employment levels, which will have an impact on suppliers," the commissioner added. As a response, he said the EU executive was planning to present proposals to develop clean cars, focusing on hybrid and hydrogen- based technologies as well as on electric vehicles, which the EU's Spanish presidency is keen to promote. Madrid has an interest in the technology as French carmaker Renault has promised to start building electric cars in its Valladolid plant, in North-Eastern Spain. Other countries - whose carmakers invested elsewhere, such as on fuel-efficient technologies on conventional combustion engines - were less enthusiastic, leading Tajani to stress that electric cars are just "one of the solutions." Italy's Claudio Scajola, for example, made a veiled jibe at Spain's socialist government. "Some people, when they talk about industrial plans and industrial plants to be built, have a Soviet-like vision, thinking that government should act as industrialists," he told journalists. Tajani also said that the European Investment Bank (EIB) would continue to give loans to carmakers investing in clean technologies. The facility was recently used to keep Sweden's Saab in business after it was sold by General Motors to Dutch carmaker Spyker.
