Word: germanic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...decision to back out of the sale of its European operations this week was a huge embarrassment for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She had thrown her weight behind the bid by the Canadian-Austrian car-parts maker Magna and its Russian partner, Sberbank, to buy Opel and Vauxhall from the beginning, seeing it as the best way to save German jobs and offering both sides billions of dollars in loan guarantees to grease the wheels. Before GM made its sudden U-turn on Nov. 3, Merkel had also been riding high. She was coming off an electoral victory in September...
...German Economy Minister, Rainer Brüderle, summed up the mood as he arrived at a cabinet meeting in Berlin on Wednesday: "The behavior of General Motors toward Germany is totally unacceptable. We won't let GM put us under any pressure." But at this point, can the German government or unions really do anything about it? Can they punish GM or at least make things difficult for the manufacturer? Will they be able to protect the 25,000 Germans employed by the company? (See the most exciting cars...
...least one thing is clear: the German government wants GM to pay back the $2.2 billion bridge loan that Berlin gave it a few months ago to keep Opel's business afloat. Jürgen Reinholz, the Economy Minister of the eastern state of Thuringia, says GM will likely do this by the end of November. But a huge question for Merkel is whether GM will now receive any of the $6.7 billion in loans the government had previously promised to Magna to seal the deal. The pledge had raised alarm bells in Britain, Belgium and Spain, where leaders feared...
...Europe on Friday." Thousands of workers gathered at the carmaker's plant in Rüsselsheim to vent their anger at the aborted sale. Roland Koch, governor of the state of Hesse, told the workers that GM couldn't be trusted and that he would fight to save every German job. The strike coincided with GM's announcement that it would shed 10,000 positions at its European plants, roughly the same number of jobs that Magna had planned to cut. GM did not say where the cuts would fall. The company employs 7,000 people in Spain...
...taken the debate a step further, implying that minarets pose a danger to Swiss society by likening them to missiles in the posters. "Everybody understands the message expressed by these posters," SVP member Ulrich Schluehr told the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle in an interview last week. "That's why the opponents of a ban are against the poster and want to forbid it. They want to oppress free discussion - a strength of Switzerland." Ouardiri dismisses the SVP's arguments as "bold-faced lies." "How can an architectural feature like a minaret be perceived as a threat?" he asks...