Night shift: from right, Peer Steinbrück, German finance minister; chancellor Angela Merkel; Frank-Walter Steinmeier, foreign minister; and Olaf Scholz, labour minister, talk during a meeting inside the Chancellery in Berlin, early on Thursday morning. Mrs Merkel and several ministers gathered for talks at Mrs Merkel’s Berlin office with representatives of GM, the US government and Opel’s suitors on the future of the European division of the US carmaker

The future of General Motors European operations hung in the balance on Thursday morning when top-level talks led by the German government ended in failure after the carmaker’s US parent demanded €300m ($414m) in financing.