Buying cars in the European Union is getting ever cheaper, but the cost of repairing them continues to rise, the European Commission in a regular report published today, according to dpa. The commission, the EU's executive, said new car prices have been kept in check by "global production overcapacity and intense competition between car manufacturers," leading to a real price fall during 2009 of 2.1 per cent in the euro area and 0.6 per cent in the whole EU. Axel Bierer, the official who presented the report in Brussels, said the fall in new car prices "has been observed for more than a decade now." "By contrast, prices for repairs and maintenance as well as spare parts continued to rise well above inflation (+1.5 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively)," an EU statement noted. The EU's competition commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, said he was "dismayed" by the development, stressing how the EU executive made "the right choice" in introducing regulation taking effect last month which forced more competition into the car repairs market. The new rules forbid carmakers from denying warranty cover to cars serviced outside their official dealer network and force them to make available technical information needed for repairs to independent mechanics. The commission report said that over 2009 new car prices fell most significantly in new EU member states such as Slovenia (-13.4 per cent) and Lithuania (-11.1 per cent) and Romania (-10.1 per cent). "The fact that most new member states were harder hit be the recession than the EU as a whole may have contributed to these price decreases," it said. In larger markets, where demand has been propped up by cash-for-clunkers schemes, giving customers discounts on condition of taking an older vehicle off the road, falls were more moderate. Spain led the way with a 4.7-per-cent price reduction, followed by Italy (-1.1 per cent), Germany (-1 per cent) and France (-0.6 per cent). Outside the euro area, prices rose significantly in Britain (+7.7 per cent), partly as a result of a tax hike, but came on the back of a 9.7-per-cent price fall in 2008, meaning that buyers were still better off compared to 2007. The commission also monitored variations excluding tax and registration charges. The comparison is useful for EU drivers aiming to shop around, since when buying abroad they would only have to pay the manufacturer's list price and pay taxes in their home state. On that basis, Britain became one of the cheapest countries in the EU, while Germany, France and Luxembourg were the most expensive.
