FOUR GERMAN federal states may invest up to €2 billion in Opel if General Motors (GM) decides to shutter its German subsidiary’s five factories in the country, which employ 26,000.
After floating the plan, leading state politicians went to the US yesterday for talks with GM managers, ahead of a US government deadline for an interim report on the firm’s proposed rescue package.
If implemented, the investment idea would mark a significant shift in Germany’s position towards Opel. To date, the federal government in Berlin has limited itself to the prospect of liquidity guarantees for the company and opposed a direct stake, fearing money invested would simply prop up GM.
German union leaders, sceptical of the chances of rescuing GM as a whole, have described the option of cutting ties with Detroit followed by direct state investment as “the only sensible, do-able alternative” to closure.
“The only prospect is disentanglement,” said Klaus Franz, Opel works council chief, on German television.
The plan, leaked to Bloomberg yesterday, reportedly calls for the closure of three Opel factories in Antwerp, Belgium and Bochum. Another plant in Eisenach would be sold.
At least two strategies have been proposed to save Opel, and with it 26,000 company jobs and up to 100,000 supplier jobs.
The first option would see governments of the states in which Opel has a presence to take a joint 20 per cent stake.
“We can see what other governments do for companies in a far worse state,” said Günther Oettinger, state premier of Baden-Württemberg, home to auto giant Daimler.
Other politicians have suggested a “national fund” to take stakes in companies considered economically “significant”.