What does the future hold for the Opel factory in Szentgotthárd?

Magyaridok.hu reported that in the 1st round around 100 hired employees were sent away from the engine factory of Opel in Szentgotthárd, but the workers are afraid of even further dismissals. In fact, PSA bought Opel from General Motors with certain conditions due to which it does not have any interest in the usage of German-innovated equipment parts. Consequently, the future of the engine factory is in danger.

An employee of the factory revealed that

the factory does not refer to this phenomenon as “dismissal”, because, in the 1st round, they only send away the hired employees.

These people have been working for the factory for years, and when they were employed, the factory stressed that they would not be put at any disadvantage because of their hired status. In reality, however, this is a completely different situation. From next January, further cut-backs are expected due to the decrease in purchase orders. To react to the incident, magyaridok.hu wanted to talk with Opel Hungary, but they did not want to comment on this issue.

The underlying cause of the dismissals is probably that the Peugeot-Citroen automotive industry does not want to use the engines produced and innovated by Opel. Recently, it came to light that the French PSA intends to equip all its cars with its own engines, because in order to use the technologies developed under the direction of the American General Motors, it has to pay licence fees, announced Gilles Le Borgne, the Director of Research and Development of PSA.

According to the manager, all Opel cars will be innovated in Germany, but they do not want to carry out the same work in the French parent company and in its German subsidiary company at the same time. They are going to start to use of the platform of PSA, but the conversion might take some time. Meanwhile, their aim is to get rid of the licence fees paid to General Motors.