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A leaked US State Department memo describes German chancellor Angela Merkel as “furious” and refusing to talk to General Motors executives after the carmaker scrapped the sale of Opel last year.
The November 2009 memo is among more than 250,000 secret US diplomatic documents posted Sunday by the website WikiLeaks.
The document, titled “GM Decision not to sell Opel Greeted By Shock And Anger In Germany”, appears to have been written by an official at the US embassy in Berlin. It was dated shortly after GM pulled out of talks to sell Opel to Canadian supplier Magna International.
The memo said: “A high-level source indicated that Chancellor Merkel is furious over the GM move and refuses to talk to GM’s leadership. It is likely only a matter of time before critics will call Merkel herself into account for her strong support of the now-collapsed Magna deal.”
The collapse of the deal with Magna was a political setback for Merkel who had been pushing it for months to protect German jobs.
The document added that a German government official voiced criticism toward officials at the US embassy, complaining that “if the US government had GM under better control, this would not have happened”.
According to Dow Jones Newswires, neither the German embassy nor GM would comment on the memo.
