Belgium will raise Opel’s restructuring at a European Union summit on Thursday amid the row over German state aid, the head of the country’s Flanders regional government said on Wednesday.
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“I don’t have an agenda for tomorrow, but I think it will certainly be a subject for discussion, informally and perhaps formally,” Flanders minister-president Kris Peeters told news agency AFP.
He said he had talked earlier with Belgian prime minister Herman Van Rompuy, hoping he would pass a message to German chancellor Angela Merkel.
The Opel plant in Antwerp, Belgium, is now seen under threat in General Motors‘ planned sale of Opel to a consortium led by Magna International.
Speaking after meeting EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes, Peeters said a formal complaint for an investigation into allegations the German aid was protectionist was being considered.
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By GlobalData“We are looking into that,” he said.
Officials are still waiting for a series of reports on Magna’s planned takeover of Opel and the rest of GM’s Europe division, which employs 50,000 people across Europe.
Peeters added that Kroes had promised a “severe” examination of the case and that if she found “political factors” had been at work, “there would be a very strong and very clear conclusion.”
