GM Europe chief to leave - sources

TRUSTEE EXPELLED

A spokeswoman for GM Europe declined to comment on the report. Opel said Forster was still chairman and an announcement would be made should there be changes.

GM left leaders in Berlin and Moscow seething this week when it dropped plans to sell a 55 percent stake in Opel to Magna and its Russian partner Sberbank .

GM will instead restructure Opel itself in a 3 billion-euro revamp it wants countries with Opel plants to help finance.

The goal is to cut fixed costs at Opel by 30 percent -- in part by chopping a fifth of Opel's 50,000 staff -- but details are scarce.

"There are signals from the company that GM will explain its plans next week. The German government is waiting for this explanation and will then evaluate it," German government spokesman Christoph Steegmans said in Berlin.

Separately, the economy minister from the state of Thuringia told Reuters that Free Democrat (FDP) politician Dirk Pfeil, a critic of the Magna deal, was being replaced on the trust body that has overseen Opel since GM briefly dipped into bankruptcy.

The minister, Matthias Machnig, said the four states with Opel sites had agreed that Pfeil needed to go because he was not representing their interests.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has suggested the Opel Trust -- not GM -- should have final say on the sale, but the Trust has said it did not need to approve GM's decision.

The Trust, which controls a 65 percent stake in Opel, will dissolve once GM repays to Germany the rest of a 1.5 billion euro bridge loan due by the end of the month.