As Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne was preparing to fly to Germany this morning meet government officials to push his case for an ambitious Fiat-Opel merger, the full Fiat board was meeting in Turin to review the details of the alliance that was reached with Chrysler last week and to offer full backing to Marchionne's strategy for Opel.

It's been a very hectic few days for Fiat making the global news, firstly the proposed alliance with Chrysler was finally nailed down last Thursday after first being mooted in late January, and then over the weekend came news of a plan to spin Fiat Group Automobiles out of the Fiat Group and merge it with GM Europe's operations, along with the 20 percent stake that Fiat has just taken in Chrysler.

The Fiat board thus met early this morning in Turin to appraise itself of the situation pertaining to Opel and to review the details of the Chrysler deal. Afterwards a statement was issued by the Fiat Group which read: "The Board of Directors of Fiat met today to review the recent agreements concluded with Chrysler. The Board also expressed its full support for the initiative to be undertaken over the next few weeks by its Chief Executive Officer, Sergio Marchionne, to assess the viability of a merger of the activities of Fiat Group Automobiles (including the interest in Chrysler) and General Motors Europe into a new company. Such a transaction would result in the creation of an automotive group with approximately 80 billion euros in annual revenues. As part of this process, the Group would evaluate several corporate structures, including the potential spin off of Fiat Group Automobiles and the subsequent listing of a new company which combines those activities with the activities of General Motors Europe. The objective of these transactions is to ensure the most favourable conditions for the strategic development of the automotive sector," the statement concluded.