彭博引述知情者称大众汽车CEO布鲁姆周五监事会前与工会及下萨克森州妥协无望，重组谈判僵持

Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Oliver Blume is heading into Friday’s crunch supervisory board meeting with little sign a compromise with labor officials on his sweeping restructuring plan is attainable.

An agreement on Friday remains possible, but the chances of sealing one are slipping because of persistent differences between management, worker representatives and the regional government of Lower Saxony over the scale and pace of the restructuring, according to people familiar with the matter.

A management threat to bypass the supervisory board via an extraordinary shareholder meeting is failing to sway key opponents, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information.

The idea became public ahead of the previous supervisory board meeting in July. While Blume’s team acknowledges the plan may not work, management is keen to show it has exhausted every possible avenue to push ahead with the restructuring, the people said.

Labor officials and Lower Saxony don’t regard that option as credible, they added. That weakens Blume’s hand as he seeks backing for deeper job cuts, lower production capacity and plans that could leave four German factories without successor products to keep them running in the next decade.

Still, Friday’s meeting isn’t necessarily an all-or-nothing moment. The supervisory board could make limited progress by narrowing differences or agreeing on parts of the restructuring while leaving the most contentious issues unresolved, the people said.

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Talks would also likely continue after the meeting if no broad agreement is reached. Volkswagen’s overhaul is an ongoing process involving management, labor and political stakeholders, and some of the most difficult decisions over jobs, factory utilization and future products could take weeks or months of further negotiation.

Volkswagen declined to comment. The standoff is the latest test of governance at Europe’s biggest carmaker, under which worker representatives have unusually powerful sway. Blume has said the automaker urgently needs to tackle costs that are around 30% higher than competitors, but he cannot simply order the overhaul without labor backing. The supervisory board is split evenly between shareholder and employee officials, while Lower Saxony has 20% of voting rights and can veto some major decisions.

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The bloc resisting deeper cuts sees significant legal questions over whether an EGM could be used to push through measures rejected by the supervisory board, according to the people. It also regards such a move as a direct attack on Germany’s system of co-determination that would trigger a severe response from labor.

The row over Volkswagen’s German plants shows why an EGM may offer management only limited leverage.

The IG Metall union said Wednesday that while the management board can decide not to allocate successor models to individual factories, that doesn’t mean their closing is already settled. It pointed to Volkswagen rules requiring supervisory-board approval for investment programs that determine spending on future products and plants.

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Even if management found a way to use an EGM, doing so could make the wider restructuring harder to implement. Many of the personnel and factory measures needed to deliver the savings would still require negotiations with works councils and unions, leaving Blume dependent on the same groups management had sought to circumvent.

That leaves Blume facing the same power struggle that frustrated his previous attempt to win approval in July. The Porsche-Piëch family, which controls Volkswagen through Porsche SE, is pushing for faster restructuring.

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