Word: berliner
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Although just half of GM's European businesses are located in Germany, Berlin has effectively grabbed control of efforts to save GM's Opel and Vauxhall operations, which GM's board in Detroit this week centralized under Opel's control. But Belgium and the U.K. are no longer willing to just follow Berlin's lead. Politicians and union leaders there fear that Chancellor Angela Merkel, facing re-election in September, is preparing a deal that would save GM jobs in Germany at the expense of plants in their countries. (See 10 milestones on the road to GM's bankruptcy...
...that any solution is in the offing immediately, even after 11 hours of talks in Berlin. German participants said the U.S. government and GM appeared to be stalling. For weeks, talks have focused on a German government-backed credit for Opel of €1.5 billion ($2.1 billion). But German officials said the U.S. surprised them on Wednesday with a new demand for an additional short-term credit of €300 million ($416 million). The U.S. government also rejected the German government's plan to impose itself as a kind of administrator over Opel's management. After the meeting, the Germans...
...Knowing that Merkel is under pressure because she has made saving Opel a key campaign issue, GM could be using the threat of insolvency to pressure Berlin into providing more aid. Merkel and her political rivals, the Social Democrats, have come too far down this road to back out now, some German commentators have suggested, exposing the government to high-pressure tactics from...
...Austrian-Canadian Magna group and Italy's Fiat SpA remain the strongest bidders for Opel. Under pressure from trade unions and key leaders of German states where Opel operates, Berlin has appeared thus far to favor the plan presented by the Austrian billionaire Frank Stronach, whose Magna group is a major worldwide supplier of components to GM. Stronach has teamed up with Russian carmaker OAO GAZ Group and the state-controlled Russian financial group OAO Sberbank. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been lobbying Merkel to support the Magna bid. Stronach told reporters on the sidelines of Wednesday's meeting...
...first the government needs to get the teachers back to work. On Wednesday, union bosses are due to sit down with the local authorities in Berlin to hammer out a new pay deal. Another strike is planned for that day, and if there's no deal, more walkouts are expected. In the meantime, some councils have set up "emergency kindergartens" staffed by non-union members for strike days. In other parts of the country, parents have teamed up to organize alternative day-care arrangements; others are taking a day's vacation to stay home with the kids...