According to the report from European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, in June 2019, new car registrations in the European Union fell by 7.8% to 1,446,183 units, the worst monthly decline since December. France and Spain had falls of more than 8%, while German and U.K. sales fell 4.7% and 4.9% respectively.

To a large extent, this drop can be attributed to a negative calendar effect. On average, June only counted 19 working days across the EU this year, compared to roughly 21 days in 2018. As a result, the five major EU markets all posted declines, especially France (-8.4%) and Spain (-8.3%).

During the first half of 2019, demand for new passenger cars across the EU was down by 3.1% compared to the same period last year, counting 8.2 million registrations in total. With the exception of Germany (+0.5%), each of the big EU markets recorded a slight decline so far in 2019.