#Opel

The car business and the news surrounding it have their seasonality (hence the SAAR.) As far as the news is concerned, we must have reached the “soak” part of the news cycle. It can only spin faster, or we should all take a vacation. Read on if you suffer from insomnia …

Roland Koch, the premier of Opel’s home state Hesse is pissed. GM’s plans to cut 2,500 jobs there are “completely unacceptable.” Koch said that Nick Reilly had told him just 24 hours earlier that GM’s restructuring plan would “in principle” orient itself on job cuts agreed with Canada’s Magna.

We know what Reilly will say. The Magna plans called for 10,000 cut jobs all over Europe, GM wants to cut only 9000, so “in principle” that’s a better deal. Except for the Germans.

European governments that are lured into propping up GM’s Opel should resist the urge, said former Continental AG Chief Executive Officer Manfred Wennemer to Bloomberg. Why? It will cost them twice.

GM is no longer in hock with Germany. They paid back all of the €1.5b bridge loan Opel had received from Berlin to keep it afloat until it was taken over by Magna and Sberbank. As we all know, this didn’t happen. Berlin wanted its money back, and got it.

“I can tell you that the last funds for Opel have been paid back by General Motors,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “I expect at least a thank you letter from General Motors in a few years.” There isn’t much love lost between GM and Berlin these days.

Automotive News [sub] reports that GM will rush out its $4.9b restructuring plan for Opel in December, as it seeks to ease worries on the continent about the fate of the troubled division. “Our plan is very similar to Magna’s. I don’t think it’s worse,” GM’s Nick Reilly told reporters near Opel’s largest plant in Zaragoza, Spain. Reily has said that as many as 10,000 jobs and 20 to 25 percent of Opel’s production capacity could be cut in the restructuring. Though Reilly refused to indicate where cuts could take place, he did say that GM would not transfer production from Zaragoza to Eisenach in eastern Germany, as Magna had planned to do. He also previously implied that British government loans could prevent or mitigate a planned 800-job cut at Opel’s Vauxhall operations in Britain.

The Senior Counselor to the U.S. President for Manufacturing Policy; and Leader on the U.S. Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, Ron Bloom, was utterly clueless. He told Reuters that the Obama administration supposedly was just as flabbergasted by GM’s sudden reversal on the Opel deal as Angela Merkel and the rest of Germany was. That they supposedly were not consulted. And that this is just divvy, because it “underscores the independence of a new board put in place to safeguard the U.S. government’s investment in GM.” Isn’t Teflon wonderful?

For Monday, November 23, EU Economy Commissar Günther Verheugen invited all EU Economy Ministers to come to Brussel to attend an Opel summit. GME’s new chief Nick Reilly will also attend, reports Unternehmer.de. The idea behind the meeting is anti-competitive: “The Commission is strictly against any bidding war with subsidies,” Verheugen said. Any government help for GM and Opel will be subject to intensive scrutiny from Brussels. Verheugen doesn’t want to rule out government help, as long as EU rules are not broken.

Don’t read too much into this meeting.

GM Europe’s head, Nick Reilly, has suggested that the job losses at Vauxhall UK may not be as bad as was feared. Before GM did a U-turn with the sale of Vauxhall/Opel, Magna agreed with Vauxhall to cut 800 jobs, no forced redundancies, and keep the Luton and Ellesmere Port plants open. Then, GM realised they liked Vauxhall/Opel so much, they kept the company and put its European operations back at square one. So far, with “New GM” in control, the results can be summed up in 4 words: Annoyed the German government.

An uncouth interview, given by GM Chairman Ed Whitacre to the German newspaper Muenchner Merkur at the sidelines of an event at the Texas Lutheran University, has shut the doors on any donations Berlin may make to Opel’s cause. Aus. Vorbei.

The Opel/GM saga has more twists than New York’s Peppermint Lounge. Yesterday, we reported that GM’s Smith & Reilly went to Berlin to beg money from German Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle. They received the cold shoulder.

Like good salesmen, they didn’t take no for an answer.