Germany’s finance minister on Friday indicated a readiness to offer General Motors aid to help restructure Opel/Vauxhall, saying the government felt a “responsibility” for the firm’s 25,000 German workers.
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“The state cannot wash its hands of its responsibility for people and the region. We will continue to look for help and solutions for those affected,” Wolfgang Schaeuble told Hanover local daily, the Neue Presse, according to AFP.
Schaeuble said that an estimate by his predecessor, Peer Steinbrueck, that an insolvency of Opel would cost the German state EUR3bn was “not wrong.”
That is also the amount General Motors is seeking from European governments to restructure Opel.
GM must first repay a EUR1.5bn loan granted by the government earlier this year, Schaeuble stressed.
Fearful that GM might close German factories apparently protected under the proposed Magna deal, Opel workers staged protests nationwide on Thursday.
GM is now expected to seek aid from Germany and other European countries where Opel has plants, including Spain, Belgium and Britain. The firm employs around 50,000 people across Europe.
Juergen Ruettgers, premier of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, home to Opel’s Bochum plant, said on ZDF public television on Friday that Germany should only offer aid if GM pledges to keep all plants open.
