German government committee endorses Opel aid: report

A woman is reflected in the logo of an Opel car as she arrives at the Opel assembly plant in Antwerp September 14, 2009.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German government committee has given its blessings to a 4.5 billion-euro ($6.6-billion) state loan guarantee to back a deal by Canadian automotive group Magna MGa.TO for General Motors' GM.UL loss-making European carmaker Opel, a magazine reported.

In a report to appear on Monday, Der Spiegel said the government panel approved the Berlin-brokered deal and said there were no objections from officials from the chancellery, economy and finance ministries -- and the four states involved.

Around half of Opel's 50,000 European jobs are in Germany.

Magna and its Russian partner Sberbank SBER03.MM have vowed to inject 500 million euros into Opel, which they want to use to make an aggressive push into the Russian market.

They plan to cut some 10,500 European jobs, of which about 4,000 in Germany, but have committed to keeping German plants running. Opel's Antwerp plant in Belgium and the UK site of sister brand Vauxhall in Luton are seen to be most at risk.

In order to push through a deal, Germany offered to stump up 4.5 billion euros in guarantees for Opel, saying it would agree later how this was split between countries with plants, which include Poland and Belgium as well as Britain and Spain.

(Writing by Erik Kirschbaum; editing by Simon Jessop)