Britain offers financial support for GM Europe rescue efforts
June 11, 2009
"The British government is prepared to play its part in enabling the company to go forward," Mandelson said after talks with his German counterpart Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg in Berlin.
He added, however, that any offer was conditional on a future perspective for GM Europe as a whole.
Mandelson warned that EU states should not retreat into protectionism in the face of the economic crisis.
"This crisis should not become a pretext or become a pretext for resurrecting the protectionist and state interventionist arguments that decades of experience has discredited in Europe," the former EU trade commissioner said.
The EU single market must not be "renationalized" he warned and urged that member states should cooperate more closely to battle the economic downturn.
British car company Vauxhall is, just like Germany's Opel, threatened by the bankruptcy of US parent company General Motors.
Early June, Berlin brokered a rescue deal with Austro-Canadian company Magna which is now set to take over GM's European operations.
The British business secretary thanked Berlin for liaising the take-over process and for backing the deal with loan guarantees. Guttenberg stressed that the objective had always been to save not only Germany's Opel but all of GM Europe.
Guttenberg dismissed a newspaper report that Magna, the Austro-Canadian company set to take over GM Europe, plans to lay off more than the 10,000 to 11,000 people initially announced.
He added, however, that there still were other bidders interested, but that currently all efforts were focused on finalizing the deal with Magna.
GM has around 55,000 employees across Europe.
ai/dpa/Reuters/AFP
Editor: Sonia Phalnikar