EU Wants to Change Auto Sales Regs

December 13, 2001

Sacramento - The European Union has some strange regulations related to vehicle sales, most of them passed over the years in trying to deal with automakers selling in multiples of countries, often with different regulations and laws. Trying to exploit some of these vagaries has gotten makers like Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen into a lot of trouble with both paying stiff fines last year for sales violations.

Now the European Commission says it wants to change the regulations on how cars are sold in Europe. The thought of changing this extremely complicated and highly regulated process is most unpopular with automakers. Nevertheless, the EC has promised to provide automakers with a proposed draft of any rule changes and it will listen to their comments. The EC hopes to have the changes in place by the end of next year.