German auto workers get time off to watch Euro 2012

Some 3.4 million employees at Volkswagen, Europe's leading automotive group, will be able to leave their offices and production lines earlier than normal in order to get home for kick-off, a spokesman said.

Against the turbulent backdrop of the eurozone's debt crisis, the match, being played in Gdansk, Poland, has special resonance, pitting Europe's most troubled economy against the bloc's effective paymaster.

Opel said its various plants had their own individual agreements but that at its main factory at Ruesselsheim, the evening shift would end two hours early at 7:00 pm local time (1700GMT).

"That's enough to enable all the workers to go home," Ulrich Weber told SID, an AFP subsidiary.

And at Daimler, decisions are also being made site-by-site.

"There are currently discussions on this subject," spokeswoman Dominique Albrecht said stressing however the importance that car orders remain on schedule.