Opel has sought to clarify remarks attributed to GM’s acting head of European operations Nick Reilly published by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).
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Opel said in a statement that the FAZ has a brief summary interview on its website, based on an interview with Nick Reilly headed ‘GM Europe boss Reilly wants to maintain all Opel plants’.
Opel said that the headline is a misinterpretation of a statement made in the interview.
The statement goes on to say that ‘Reilly stated clearly that there are multiple ways for reducing structural cost, however, he cannot talk about any details yet.’
According to Opel, Reilly answered the specific question: “How many plants do you have to close?” as follows:
“We do not ‘have to’ close any plants. What we have to do is to reduce part of our capacity. We have to reduce part of our structural costs. And there are different ways of doing this. We are not necessarily talking about full plants. I cannot provide any details yet. But if we have ten plants and want to reduce capacity by 20 per cent, that does not mean that we have to close two plants.”
The term ‘have to’ was meant to express that the first and foremost task is to reduce capacity, the statement said. The specific decision how to implement that, however, comes only as a second step.
Reilly maintains his statement that he has repeatedly made that ‘we cannot provide any specific details yet’. Reilly advised of a concrete plan for mid December, the statement added.
