EuC$_2$ is a ferromagnet with a Curie-temperature of $T_C simeq 15,$K. It is semiconducting with the particularity that the resistivity drops by about 5 orders of magnitude on cooling through $T_C$, which is therefore called a metal-insulator transition. In this paper we study the magnetization, specific heat, thermal expansion, and the resistivity around this ferromagnetic transition on high-quality EuC$_2$ samples. At $T_C$ we observe well defined anomalies in the specific heat $c_p(T)$ and thermal expansion $alpha(T)$ data. The magnetic contributions of $c_p(T)$ and $alpha(T)$ can satisfactorily be described within a mean-field theory, taking into account the magnetization data. In zero magnetic field the magnetic contributions of the specific heat and thermal expansion fulfill a Gruneisen-scaling, which is not preserved in finite fields. From an estimation of the pressure dependence of $T_C$ via Ehrenfests relation, we expect a considerable increase of $T_C$ under applied pressure due to a strong spin-lattice coupling. Furthermore the influence of weak off stoichiometries $delta$ in EuC$_{2 pm delta}$ was studied. It is found that $delta$ strongly affects the resistivity, but hardly changes the transition temperature. In all these aspects, the behavior of EuC$_2$ strongly resembles that of EuO.
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