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General Motors Europe announced on Thursday it is to close an entire car production plant in Belgium, making 2,600 workers redundant and ramping up an already tense climate of industrial unrest.
"Our intention today is to stop production in a matter of a few months," new chief executive Nick Reilly told a Brussels press conference, suggesting June or July as the likeliest date.
A new line of small sports utility vehicles will now be built in South Korea instead, he said.
It is the second major factory closure announced by carmakers in Europe this month, after Italy's Fiat acted to shut a plant in Sicily.
Europe-wide restructuring at GM's Opel unit is expected to shed 8,300 jobs from a total of almost 50,000 -- half of which are located in Germany.
Reilly said that about 4,000 of the jobs going would be German positions.
The Belgian factory in northern Antwerp, home to the world's biggest diamond market and one of the world's five largest ports, is the only GM plant so far to face being locked up.
Reilly said there was no alternative, and rejected ideas that the plant could be adapted for individual parts manufacturing.
"It's not GM's intention to get into the components business," he said.
Joeri, who has worked for Opel for 22 years, said: "We are seen as antiquated objects."
"It's an absolute catastrophe for Belgian workers and manufacturing," added Walter Cnop, of the CSC union's metalworkers' branch.
Slamming management "arrogance," Cnop said that from Tuesday of next week, "the factory will remain blocked until such time as we decide to let finished cars out."
Reilly said he understood workers' disappointment and anger, but underlined: "We have cars for them to build and we'd like to continue normal work" until the gates close for the last time.
An emergency meeting with the office of Belgium's devolved Flemish government leader Kris Peeters later on Thursday was to precede redundancy and resettlement talks.
Mayor Cathy Berx said the blow was equivalent to "a tsunami for Antwerp," but Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme said his federal government would prioritise its efforts around seeking "maximum guarantees of finding a job."
Belgian industry federation Agoria warned that at least 5,000 jobs could be lost due to knock-on effects affecting regional suppliers and local services.
Opel needs 3.3 billion euros (4.7 billion dollars) to finance its new business plan, and hopes to get 2.7 billion euros from countries where Opel and its British sister brand Vauxhall have operations.
Germany was willing to fund the lion's share for Canadian parts manufacturer Magna, which agreed a deal last year to buy GM Europe. However, that sale collapsed amid a political row over European Union state aid rules.
Antwerp unions have consistently maintained that a plant in Bochum, western Germany, had a weaker economic case, and called again on Thursday for European labour solidarity.
Employee and union representatives also accused management of breaching a contract with the company's European Works Council on the SUV line, saying Antwerp employees had been engaged on the project since 2007.
"Our projection of how many of those we will manufacture has gone down," said Reilly of a slump in demand globally for 4x4 cars, adding that it would be "more economic" to build them in Korea.
The Antwerp closure comes at a time of sensitive industrial relations in Belgium, as elsewhere.
The world's biggest brewer Anheuser Busch InBev, maker of famed Belgian beer brands such as Stella Artois, Leffe or Hoegaarden, has suffered two weeks of blockade action in protest at job cuts.
Belgian firefighters also mounted a spectacular protest over career prospects on Thursday, spraying government buildings and main traffic arteries with foam, while prison guards are themselves out on strike over working conditions.
