BRUSSELS, May 7 (Reuters) - European Union citizens will find it easier to shop around the 27-nation bloc for new cars from this month thanks to less paperwork required to register a vehicle bought in another EU state, the EU executive arm said.
To make such registration easier, the European Commission introduced a certificate of conformity for all new EU vehicles, which proves that a vehicle complies with all EU technical provisions and can be put into circulation in EU country.
Such a certificate has already been established in 1993, but only for motor cars, and until now it had only been issued when national law required it, or on request of the buyer.
From May 2009 any EU vehicle manufacturer, motor car or other, will have to issue such a Certificate of Conformity for every vehicle, making registration elsewhere in the bloc easier.
"This will not lead to extra costs by consumers. We think it is good for the internal market consumers and producers as well, especially in these times," Commission spokesman Ton van Lierop told a regular news briefing.
The EU is the largest automotive production region in the world and the industry comprises 6.5 percent of the manufacturing sector in the bloc.
The sector has been hit hard by the global economic slowdown and the drying up of credit amid financial market turmoil, which triggered lay-offs and production cut-backs.
Direct employment by the automotive industry stands at about 2.2 million people, but the total employment effect -- direct and indirect -- is about 12 million, the Commission said.
No data on how many cars are bought across borders in the EU at the moment was immediately available, van Lierop said. (Reporting by Jan Strupczewski, editing by Dan Lalor)