GM Defends Decision to Keep Opel

General Motors Co. made the right choice in late 2009 when it scrapped plans to sell its Opel unit to a Canadian-Russian consortium, GM Vice Chairman Steve Girsky tells The Wall Street Journal.

Girsky says would be "naive" to think the auto giant doesn't need a presence in the European market, the newspaper reports. He notes that the region is the incubator and proving ground for cutting-edge technologies that carmakers eventually use around the world.

Girsky, who was one of the GM directors who argued for keeping Opel, has been the unit's chairman since November 2011.

The company has lost more than $19 billion (€14.6 billion) in the region since 1999, including $1.8 billion (€1.4 billion) last year. But Girsky says Opel's turnaround is starting to gain traction. He notes that the company reached an agreement earlier this week with its German labor unions on restructuring moves.

Former Volkswagen AG executive Karl-Thomas Neumann became Opel CEO last Friday. Girsky says he now plans to spend more time in the U.S. working on GM corporate strategy.