Word: merkel
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...With Germans set to vote in parliamentary elections on Sept. 27, Merkel seems eager to create an exit strategy on Opel in case negotiations blow up on her. "The situation is that we have decided with a clear preference to advocate the Magna plan," Merkel told German television channel N-24 on Aug. 26. "There is a good possibility that we will come together...
...talks stalled and Merkel declared the entire GM-Opel mess to be "chefsache," or a matter for the boss. After lengthy and tense talks, GM negotiators finally seemed to agree to the German plan...
...spot from rival Toyota. To do so, GM needs a European manufacturing base. At the very least, GM wants to avoid creating a new competitor by providing the dowry for a tie-up among Magna, Sberbank and Opel. So on Aug. 21, the GM board rejected Merkel's plan and sent point man Smith back to Berlin. (Read "Busting Out: German Pol Plays the Cleavage Card...
...Merkel has tried, and failed, to get President Barack Obama to intervene. Her rival for the chancellery, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Foreign Minister in the grand coalition government that joins Merkel's Christian Democrats and his Social Democrats, called Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging her to get involved. But the message from Washington is that it's up to GM to make its own investment decisions. (See pictures of Obama in Germany...
...German commentators have criticized the almost amateurish way in which Merkel and Steinmeier have risked turning GM and Opel's misery into a transatlantic dispute. Neither GM nor the Obama Administration, which appointed 10 of GM's current board members, appears to like the idea of handing Opel - and GM patents - to a consortium at least partially controlled by Russian oligarchs. "Neither the Chancellor's phone call with the American President nor the Foreign Minister's with Mrs. Clinton impressed anyone," wrote the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in a commentary published on Aug. 26. "It is questionable whether their decision...