Reuters (Frankfurt) - General Motors loss-making Opel unit expects difficult negotiations with its labor leaders will be a matter of months, not weeks, before an agreement can be reached on how to turnaround the business.
"I expect this not to happen in a month or so, rather than in a couple of months, that's at least how I see the timetable," Opel Chief Executive Karl-Friedrich Stracke told reporters on Thursday during a conference call.
Stracke said he aimed to raise the utilization of Opel's vehicle production capacity to a 100 percent on a three shift basis.
He declined to comment on whether he intended to achieve this either by taking capacity out -- for example by shutting the Zafira plant in Bochum, Germany -- or shifting overseas production of cars sold in Europe under the Chevrolets or Opel to some of his underutilized factories.
"Our plants have been anticipated to be utilized three shifts in the future and utilized at 100 percent," he said.
"It's too premature to say anything else on plant closures or utilizing (plants to build) Chevys in Europe, that's all part of the discussions we're having right now with the unions and works council," Stracke added.
The Opel CEO said there was a contractual obligation to preserve existing plants until 2014 that he intended to honor.
GM has major vehicle manufacturing operations in Germany, the UK, Poland and Spain.
