BERLIN (AFP)--German Chancellor Angela Merkel ruled out Sunday
having the state take a direct stake in Opel to save the troubled
car maker.
Merkel, in a public television interview to be aired late
Sunday, said taking a state in the company would "not be good news"
for its employees.
"We do not have the intention" to take a direct stake in Opel,
said the conservative chancellor, who is scheduled to visit an Opel
factory in the western German town of Russelsheim on March 31.
Labor Minister Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat in Merkel's
governing coalition, had evoked the possibility of the state
getting a stake in Opel, a subsidiary of U.S. automaker General
Motors Corp. (GM).
"We shouldn't be afraid of such a decision," he said in an
interview published in Sunday's edition of Bild newspaper. But he
added that it "should not be for the long-term."
His comments raised the stakes within the coalition, which
includes Social Democrats and Merkel's Christian Democrats, six
months before legislative elections.
Opel has said it needs the EUR3.3 billion ($4.5 billion) to
avoid bankruptcy under a plan presented in late February, which
also foresees the German car maker gaining a large degree of
autonomy from Detroit-based GM.
German authorities have deemed a GM Europe proposal for Opel too
vague and have given themselves several weeks to decide whether to
bail out the car maker, which employs 26,000 people in Germany
alone.