Auto workers in Spain are protesting a deal between General Motors and a Canadian-Russian partnership that will cause the about 11,000 jobs; workers in the United Kingdom and Belgium are also considering taking action. Most of the job losses will take place in those three nations, and not in Germany where most of Opel's jobs are located. The Belgians want an investigation to make sure Germany did not offer incentives for their workers to be spared cuts; Germany maintains that their backing of the deal was a legitimate business deal. The suspicion of the deal speaks to a larger conflict between the EU and Russia.
See "Thousands of European Workers Rally against Sale of GM's Opel", David Francis, The Christian Science Monitor, September 23, 2009