But the company is seeking new working practices that will cut several hundred jobs out of

But the company is seeking new working practices that will cut several hundred jobs out of more than 4,000 to save money.
Last week Ford announced that it had made losses of $472m in Europe in the third quarter after profits of $269m in the first half of 1996. Last year Escort’s UK market share fell below 20 per cent for the first time.The car industry negotiator for the Transport and General Union, Tony Woodley, said that if the company decided against manufacturing the Escort on Merseyside, the union reaction would be “serious and instant”.”It will be for the company to announce whether the new Escort will be built there. If not, that has got massive implications for assembly at Halewood. It would in effect close it,” he said.Thursday’s meeting was called by the company and will be attended by its head of manufacturing in Europe.

Ford has already told employees in Valencia, Spain, and Saarlouis, Germany, that they will build the new model.Car making on Merseyside has been turbulent since the leading manufacturers opened plants there in the 1950s and 1960s during government drives to boost regional economic development. British Leyland, the previous incarnation of Rover, closed its site at Speke, which made Triumphs, at the end of the 1970s after an appalling record for productivity, quality and union disruption.Halewood’s future was also periodically in doubt, with a reputation gained during the 1970s as one of Ford’s worst manufacturing sites. However vast productivity strides saved the plant in the early 1990s and its current problems have come as a surprise to industry experts.In contrast, Vauxhall recently announced a pounds 300m investment programme at its plant at Ellesmere Port, securing the future of 3,500 staff.. It is no surprise that Alexandre Lamfalussy, the Belgian banker in charge of preparing Europe for the single currency, is optimistic about its introduction in less than two years. What is more remarkable is his new willingness to link the success of monetary union to political integration, with a frankness unusual in central banking circles.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Mr Lamfalussy highlighted the need for wide policy co-ordination as the biggest potential hurdle in the way of the successful operation of European monetary union.
He said: “We need closer economic and political co-operation. I don’t want to say political union because its content is vague.. but there will be areas in which we have to get closer. That will be forced by monetary union and that is the greatest challenge.”It is a view likely to confirm the worst fears of Britain’s Europhobes. It also reconciles French demands for a “stability council” which would give finance ministers a strong voice in economic policy and German determination that the new European Central Bank will be as independent and tough as the Bundesbank.There would need to be explicit co-ordination of fiscal policies, on top of the harmonisation of taxes that was already under way within the single market, Mr Lamfalussy said. Speaking from the European Monetary Institute’s eyrie high above the snow-bound streets of Frankfurt, he said: “This is a unique enterprise. All of this is experimental.”Mr Lamfalussy’s other, equally strong, message for Europe’s politicians is that they are wrong to blame high unemployment and stagnant growth on the need to meet the Maastricht criteria.