STA, 14 February 2019 - Magna Steyr has welcomed the deal reached on Wednesday that persuaded an NGO not to challenge the environment permit for its paint shop in Slovenia any further. However, the multinational said the agreement did not make it possible to launch production at Hoče as yet, so its part of the job would be done at its Austria location for the time being.
The Austrian-Canadian automotive group said that it was obligated to meet the commitments to supply cars to its business partners by the agreed deadlines. The company said it had expected to be able to launch production at its EUR 160m Hoče plant near Maribor this week.
"Since this is not possible at this time, we will carry out this part of production temporarily at our Graz factory by introducing extra shifts," the multinational said, expressing the hope that a final solution allowing the earliest possible launch of production at Hoče would be found as soon as possible.
The company undertook "organisational preparations" on Monday to move production to its main facility in Austria's Graz due to uncertainty surrounding the environmental permit for the Hoče plant.
The Environment Ministry rejected the sole appeal against the environmental permit submitted by the Regional Environmental Association of Environmentalists (ROVO) from Novo Mesto, in the south-east of the country.
The ROVO threatened to take its appeal to the Administrative Court but changed its mind after yesterday's meeting with government officials who promised that the government would amend the special law on Magna investment so as to allow for the plant to have been built in a water protection area.
However, Magna will still need to wait for a 30-day period within which appeals with the court are still possible to expire. The period has been running since last Thursday when the ministry rejected ROVO's appeal.
