Brussels, 24/09/2009 (Agence Europe) - In a letter dated 24 September addressed to the European Commission, Britain's Business Secretary Peter Mandelson states that the proposed acquisition of the German car manufacturer Opel by Magna International comprises elements that are tantamount to “political interference”. The Commission side assures that the German proposal will be closely scrutinised once all information has been provided by Berlin.
In a letter addressed to Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, Mandelson states he is not convinced, saying that “the current Magna proposal is commercially the most viable plan”. He calls on the Commission to “ensure that the result is decided in relation to commercial aspects rather than determined by political interference and subsidies”. Some are concerned that the conditions of the project only protect the maker's German jobs. The Opel branch in the United Kingdom, which operates under the name of Vauxhall, has two plants and employs 4,700. The Commission's spokesperson for competition, Jonathan Todd, explained that the Commission would not tolerate the “de facto or de jure” conditions on restructuring. He stressed that the Commission had still not obtained all the facts from Berlin. Todd said that once the dossier is submitted, “we will go through it with a fine tooth comb” to decide on its compatibility. According to the Commissioner for Industry, Günter Verheugen, “it is competition between the manufacturers that will determine structural adaptations” and not state aid. According to the German press, out of the 45,000 jobs in the EU, Opel aims to get rid of 10,500, 4000 of them in Germany, the rest in Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom. Objective: save €265 million a year. Peter Hintz, the secretary of state for the economy in Germany, confirmed at a ministerial meeting in Brussels that he had received a list of questions from the Commission, to which he intended to reply in the next fortnight. The German minister of the economy, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (CSU), underlined that his government would strive to make the project acceptable to the Commission. He said it was inconceivable to have a link between state aid and sharing out job losses, as “we would therefore not be in compliance with the Community law”. (C.D./jl/rh)