Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-09-14-Speech-1-094"
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"en.20090914.24.1-094"2
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"− Mr President, the public financing of Opel/Vauxhall by one or more European governments is the issue that I will address.
As you know, last Thursday, the Opel Trust, in which General Motors (GM) and the German authorities have equal representation, announced that it has approved the sale by GM of a majority stake in its European Opel/Vauxhall operations to the consortium of Magna International and Sberbank. This decision by the owners of Opel has been supported by the German Government. The German Government promised to grant public funds of up to EUR 4.5 billion to the new Opel, with the possible participation of other European governments.
Mr President, the Commission has kept in touch with all the Member States concerned throughout the process which led to this transaction and the Commission is also aware of the controversies regarding the respective merits of the restructuring plans presented by different bidders, including the doubt publicly expressed by certain members of the Opel Trust.
Concerning the public financing of the GM/Magna transaction, we have been informed that the German Government intends to avail itself of a pre-existing approved scheme under the Commission’s temporary framework for State aid measures to support access to finance in the current financial and economic crisis.
Mr President, I intend to verify carefully whether this scheme can be used in this case and you will certainly understand that I cannot take a position at this stage since the deal is not yet finalised and, by the way, a number of aspects are still being negotiated. However, at this moment, it is quite important that I should outline to you the most relevant considerations. In particular, I have to underline that State aid granted under the temporary framework cannot be subject
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to additional conditions concerning location of investments or the geographic distribution of restructuring efforts. Such conditions would create – and I am quite clear on this – unacceptable distortions in the internal markets and could trigger a subsidy race which would significantly damage the European economy at the present, very delicate moment. Moreover, if the restructuring of a European company was determined by non-commercial conditions attached to public financing, there would be a risk that a company would not be able to restore its long-term viability, and that risk to viability is all the greater due to the current weakened state of the entire European car industry. The European car industry, as we are all aware, suffers from considerable overcapacity. So a failed restructuring would result in great damage for the company and for its workers, in negative spillovers for the whole sector, and in a waste of taxpayer’s money. And those principles will be my guidance in my assessment in the Opel case.
I will verify whether non-commercial protectionist conditions are attached to public funding
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and the Commission will examine not only the legal conditions that may be attached to a final aid package, but also the entire context in which the aid is granted. And I will be particularly interested to find out whether the German authorities have effectively linked the provision of aid to a single bidder and, if so, to find out why they regarded that bidder’s business plan as preferable from an industrial and commercial point of view.
In the short term, it is a sad fact that, because of the current state of overcapacity in the car industry, any plan to restore the profitability of Opel/Vauxhall will require job losses across the company as a whole and planned closures; all the plans to save Opel/Vauxhall presented by different potential investors have foreseen both plant closures and job cuts. However, a social restructuring is the only way to ensure viable and stable jobs for the future, and the Commission cannot, and should not, try to dictate where such cuts will fall, nor can it try to prevent them. We will, however, be scrutinising the process very carefully to ensure that it is based on commercial considerations designed to sustain viable jobs and not protectionist motives."@en1
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