Last night's marathon German government meeting to thrash out Opel's future was turned upside down when the GM threw in a last minute demand for an extra 300 million euros in financing on top of the 1.5 billion euros bridge loan that had been agreed.

What turned into a 12 hour evening marathon in Berlin was not enough time to come to a decision on the sale of Opel. As expected, the German government has narrowed their selection of potential buyers of Opel to Fiat and Magna, which by tomorrow will have to present modified offers to resolve various issues regarding the trustee and bridge loan. Then at the very last minute a request for a greater liquidity was made by GM for its German subsidiary: 300 million euros more than the 1.5 billion euros that Berlin and German regions where the Opel factories are located were willing to pay in the form of a bridge loan. The total is now up to 1.8 billion euros for the German automaker until a definitive solution is found, which would then have to be taken on by the buyer. After the summit in the German chancellor's office, which began at 5:00PM and ended at 4:30AM, Fiat and the Austro-Canadian parts manufacturer Magna International are on level ground. "This was a bizarre night,” Economic Minister Karl-Theodor Guttenberg told waiting reporters when the meeting finished in the early hours. "The talks were turned upside down by GM’s unexpected demands. We do not have the assurances we need in order to extend a bridge loan."

"It was an important night, which demonstrated that we are dealing with a complex matter," Guttenberg said later on. He explained that the government will still have to verify certain aspects, "but it is mainly the investors who have to modify their proposals" while he admitted a scenario including insolvency for Opel has not yet been excluded. "We had a nasty surprise when this demand turned up literally at 8:00PM. We did consider this a bit of an outrage. It’s understandable that the U.S. government wants to keep the price low, but that’s not acceptable to us."

Berlin is clearly highly irritated by GM's last minute request: "I think that we can say clearly that a good part of the problems last night came from a combination of factors: GM's new numbers and a unhelpful position in negotiations taken by the Americans, by the US Treasury Department," explained Roland Koch, the state premier of Hesse, where Opel is based.

Also angered by the turn of events was Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier: "This is something that one could have known about earlier and should have said earlier," he told reporters complaining that the urgency of the matter was "not sufficiently clear" in the U.S. "The communication between Europe and the USA is not good enough," Steinmeier added while calling for "constructive participation by GM and the U.S. government."