Bernd Pischetsrieder, chief executive of Volkswagen, will visit Brussels on Wednesday amid mounting speculation over the future of the German car maker’s factory in the city as plant unions said the workforce there was in “panic”, the Financial Times (FT) reported.
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The FT said VW is understood to be considering closing the Brussels plant, which employs 5,700 and produces the Golf hatchback and Audi A3 models, as a first step towards combating overcapacity. A report in another UK paper said the plant built 184,000 cars last year.
Pischetsrieder is in the Belgian capital for a meeting of Cars 21, a European Union-sponsored group discussing the future of the automobile industry, and is not thought to be due to visit the factory, the Financial Times said.
The paper noted that his trip comes amid widespread consternation among unions over the possible closure. Union officials at the Brussels plant were reported to be in emergency talks on Monday night.
An official from the Liberal union said the management would meet unions on Thursday, shortly before the summer holidays begin on Monday. Some workers were due to be temporarily laid off on Thursday and Friday, the official said, due to weak demand for the factory’s products. “There’s huge uncertainty here. It’s a situation of panic,” he told the FT.
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By GlobalDataThe Financial Times said a decision to close the factory would be a bitter blow to Belgium and its car-making industry, which has undergone a number of setbacks in recent years, starting with the controversial closure of Renault‘s Vilvoorde factory in 1997.
“You have to understand the workers haven’t forgotten Renault. They are very afraid, especially as Wednesday is the last day of work for many of them,” the union official told the FT.
VW told the paper: “There is no decision taken on closing any Volkswagen factory.”
According to the Financial Times, the situation in Brussels comes as a special committee of VW’s supervisory board prepares to meet tomorrow to discuss the proposed resignation of Peter Hartz, personnel chief and a close ally of chancellor Gerhard Schroder. Hartz reportedly offered to quit on Friday amid a growing bribery and fraud scandal at VW but has denied any wrongdoing.
The paper said the meeting of the committee is likely to be tense as Christian Wulff, one of its members and the conservative state premier of Lower Saxony, has publicly locked horns with Jurgen Peters, another member and the head of the IG Metall union, over the scandal.
People close to the board told the Financial Times that Wulff was also bracing for a clash with Ferdinand Piech, non-executive chairman and VW’s former chief executive. IG Metall has been weakened by allegations that its members, senior officials at the works council, took exotic trips and used prostitutes using the company’s money.
The union and VW have refuted the allegations, the FT noted.
But the Liberal union official in Brussels told the Financial Times that Belgian workers had little hope IG Metall would hold out for a good deal for them.
