INGOLSTADT/BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - After months of negotiations with works councils and trade unions, Audi has now announced the closure of the Wers in Brussels. Car production will cease at the end of February and the plant will be closed, the company announced on Thursday.

There is no social plan for the 3,000 employees. The Volkswagen Group subsidiary announced that the sixth offer made by the company had also been rejected by the employee representatives. Audi is now offering its employees a voluntary company bonus in addition to the statutory redundancy pay, says Gerd Walker, Member of the Board of Management for Production. "Overall, Audi is spending more than twice as much on severance pay as required by law."

The factory only produces a single model, the large Q8 e-tron electric SUV. Its sales figures are shrinking. The factory has very high logistics costs because there are only a few suppliers nearby. The location between a residential area, railroad tracks and the highway makes expansion difficult. The parent company Volkswagen is in crisis and does not want to launch a new model in Brussels. Audi is also talking to the General Works Council in Ingolstadt about how redundancies in Germany can be avoided. The search for an investor to continue the plant with the employees has been unsuccessful.

Walker regretted that negotiations on a social plan had failed. An employee with 17 years of service would have received between 125,000 and 190,000 euros, depending on function and salary. Without a joint social compensation plan, Audi would not be allowed to offer additional retirement arrangements for employees over 60 for legal reasons./rol/DP/jha