Report: GM Wants to Shift Some Peugeot Production to Germany

General Motors Co. (IW 1000/13), which holds a 7% stake in French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroen (IW 1000/43), wants it to shift some production to GM's troubled German unit Opel, a German daily reported.

In an internal production plan, GM wants production of the Citroen DS5 and the Peugeot 508 shifted to Opel's Ruesselheim factory in Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports in its Saturday edition.

A Peugeot spokesman told FAZ that the report was speculation, noting that GM and Peugeot are still working out how the alliance they agreed to in February will actually work.

European automakers, including Peugeot and Opel, are under intense pressure to eliminate their overcapacity.

But with growth slowing in the eurozone, job cuts will become even more politically difficult and shifting jobs between countries a possibly explosive issue.

Peugeot's, which lost 819 million euros ($1 billion) in the first half of 2012, announced in July that it intends to cut 8,000 jobs.

GM suffered $656 million in losses in Europe in the first half of the year.

In June, Opel adopted a massive restructuring plan, but so far unions have succeeded in keeping the company from cutting jobs and closing any factories.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012