Around 8,300 jobs will be slashed in Europe, Opel boss Nick Reilly said on Tuesday, as he unveiled a long-awaited plan for the future of the ailing General Motors unit and its 50,000 employees.
The proposal to restructure Opel and British sister brand Vauxhall has now been officially submitted to German authorities, he said, and included a planned investment of 11 billion euros (15 billion dollars) by 2014.
Opel is seeking at least 1.5 billion euros in German aid.
Fewer than half the cuts, a little more than 3,900, would take place in Germany, Reilly noted, while confirming the closure of a plant in the northern Belgian city of Antwerp with the loss of 2,377 jobs.
Spain would also be affected with the loss of 900 jobs, while more than 500 were slated to be cut in Britain.
“We have no time to waste,” Reilly told a news conference in Frankfurt, near Opel’s headquarters in Ruesselsheim.
He added that, with the new plan, “we expect to break even in 2011 and make a decent profit in 2012.”
According to a study by independent auditors demanded by German authorities “the plan is financially sound and offers a realistic roadmap to renewed business success,” Reilly said.
Opel needs a total of 3.3 billion euros to finance its plan, and hopes to get 2.7 billion of it from countries where Opel and Vauxhall have operations.
Reilly said that since 60 percent of Opel’s workforce was in Germany, the car maker was looking for “an approximate allocation of the 2.7 billion” on that basis, suggesting it would ask Berlin for around 1.62 billion euros.
An economy ministry source told Dow Jones Newswires meanwhile that GM had asked the federal government and German states that host Opel sites for 1.5 billion euros.
The head of the German state of Hesse, where Ruesselsheim is located, however, called for GM to plough more of its own money into the restructuring.
“According to our first impression, it will be necessary for GM, as the owner, to considerably increase its contribution to the restructuring,” state premier Roland Koch said.
GM has committed 600 million euros to the plan, and Reilly stressed Tuesday that “the cash that is in General Motors is essentially US taxpayers’ money.
“It is not surprising that the United States would expect Europe and European governments to help a European entity and not have the US taxpayer pay for all of the restructuring and growth of Opel,” he added.
German Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle and British Business Minister Peter Mandelson told a joint press conference Friday they would consider any appeal for aid immediately after the business plan was presented.
GM had initially decided to sell Opel/Vauxhall but changed its mind after its own rescue by the US government, and has decided to turn the European unit around itself.
Opel is also holding talks with unions on the restructuring, and Reilly said: “I fully respect the necessary role of unions in these difficult decisions.
“At the end, we both want the same thing, a successful company,” he said.
