German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Thursday he would address the issue of Opel when meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the sidelines of a meeting of Group of 20 officials in St Andrews, Scotland.
His comments come after General Motors Co.'s board late Tuesday decided to retain the firm's core European operations, embarrassing German federal and state governments, which had in recent months lobbied hard for the sale of Opel to Canadian car-parts maker Magna International Inc. (MGA) and two Russian partners, OAO Sberbank and OAO Gaz.
The U.S. government holds a majority stake in GM and has injected dozens of billions of dollars in the U.S. carmaker to keep it afloat.
The German government, which has provided a bridging loan to Opel and had also promised to provide state aid if Opel was sold to Magna, has been angered by GM's handling of Opel. Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she wants GM to quickly present a restructuring plan for Opel which is viable and is focused on job security.
-By Andrea Thomas, Dow Jones Newswires; +49 30 2888 4126; andrea.thomas@dowjones.com