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— German government officials were to discuss conditions of a possible loan guarantee for General Motors' subsidiary Adam Opel GmbH on Monday at a meeting with company executives.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck and Economy Minister Michael Glos were to hold talks with Opel managers, including employee council chief Klaus Franz, at the chancellery later in the day.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is also Ms. Merkel's vice chancellor, was slated to meet with other auto industry officials later Monday to discuss the state of the industry, which has been hit hard by the world economic crisis — prompting many companies to curb their production, cut jobs and lengthen their holiday stoppages.

The German auto industry employs about 850,000 people directly, and has seen sales decline as the world economic crisis has pinched consumers' spending.

On Saturday, worker representatives and union leaders at Opel sought to allay fears about the company's solvency, saying Opel's appeal for loan guarantees from the government is just a precaution.

They also assured workers not "one cent" would be drained from Opel to prop up struggling its U.S. parent.

Last week, Opel's parent company GM reported a $2.5-billion (U.S.) third-quarter loss and said it is burning so much cash that it could reach the minimum amount required to run the company by the end of this year.

While it has said bankruptcy is not an option, GM is urgently lobbying the U.S. government for a part of $25 billion in low-interest loans set aside for the battered auto industry.

On Friday, Opel said it would seek the guarantees for an unspecified amount from the federal government and from the governments of the four states where it has facilities — Hesse, Thuringia, Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. The company said the goal was to secure jobs and safeguard Opel's competitiveness.

Representatives from some of those states are to meet with Opel representatives on Tuesday.

In a joint statement issued after a special meeting Saturday, worker council leaders from four plants and a representative from industrial union IG Metall insisted that "Opel has no liquidity problem, it is purely a precautionary measure."

Opel, based in Ruesselsheim, employs approximately 25,000 workers in Germany, and also builds cars in Belgium, Poland, Portugal and Britain.

GM sold 330,590 cars in Germany last year, including 299,239 Opel-branded vehicles. It is the third-most popular brand in Germany, behind Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.

Any support the German government provides to industry will be judged on a case-by-case basis, the finance minister said on Monday, adding that talks with troubled carmaker Opel should not lead others to jump on the bandwagon.

Ms. Merkel will meet representatives of Opel, part of General Motors Corp, at 1530 GMT on Monday, a government spokesman said.

"The government will have to deal with possible problems at Opel if some 25,000 jobs are affected, as well as suppliers," Mr. Steinbrueck told Deutschlandfunk radio, but added that the issue also raised competition and legal problems.

"I don't want to invite all kinds of bandwagon-jumpers to come to the German government and say: 'If you're helping Opel, I will tell my story in such a way that you can't refuse to help me too'," he said.

"It will depend on individual cases," said Mr. Steinbrueck.

On Tuesday, officials from the Finance Ministry, Economy Ministry and German states will hold talks to discuss the broader woes in the auto sector, where demand has been severely hit by the financial crisis.

Troubles in the car sector are a major worry in Germany, Europe's largest economy, where close to one in five workers is employed, directly or indirectly, in the sector.

On Friday, Opel became the first European carmaker to turn to a government for help, asking for guarantees to finance its development and assembly facilities should GM stop supplying cash. The carmaker employs about 25,000 in its German plants in Ruesselsheim, Bochum, Kaiserslautern and Eisenach.

Other German carmakers are also suffering. Daimler said last month it would shut two big German plants for a month due to a sharp drop in demand.

Auto parts maker Robert Bosch GmbH said earlier this month it would shorten the working week for 3,500 workers at a plant in Germany for six months.

- With files from Reuters