General Motors Corp.'s (GM) German Opel unit Friday said that market conditions have deteriorated dramatically since it asked for state aid in November, suggesting it may need significantly higher guarantees than anticipated at the time.

Armin Schild, a supervisory board member at Opel, told Dow Jones Newswires that the company needs at least EUR3.3 billion in capital to survive.

GM's largest European brand didn't provide financial details.

"It's the clear responsibility of Opel's management to paint a realistic picture and consider the change on European markets when asking for guarantees from the state," Opel said in a statement.

German Economics Ministry spokesman Steffen Moritz said Germany hasn't received any formal request for financial aid from Opel. However, he added that Germany is waiting for the company to present its restructuring plan.

Opel said in its statement that the sharp fall in car sales on major European markets in recent months was "unforeseeable" in November, adding that unfavorable currency fluctuations of the euro against the British pound and the Russian ruble added fuel to the fire.

GM's troubled Swedish Saab brand Friday received creditor protection so that it can be reorganized, and said it will seek to become fully independent from GM.

To accomplish this, Saab said it will look for fresh funding from private and public sources.

The woes embroiling GM's European brands come at a time when the parent company itself is seeking additional state aid in the U.S. to stave off bankruptcy.

GM Tuesday said it is counting on $6 billion in financial support from foreign governments and could potentially need billions more from the U.S. government in coming years to cover pension obligations, even if it gets the additional aid it requests.

However, the structure of GM Europe is set to change materially in coming weeks, raising questions about the prospects of the individual brands after the ties to Detroit have been loosened or cut entirely at a time when all global automakers are being battered by slumping demand.

Neither Saab nor Opel have said how they plan to disentangle their ties. For example, the new generation of Saab's 9-5 model is being developed at Opel's headquarters in Ruesselsheim, Germany, and was supposed to be produced at the local plant there from the end of 2009.

The company invested heavily at the Ruesselsheim site for the 9-5 launch, but Saab wants to relocate design, research and development as well as production back to Sweden as part of the planned restructuring.

Analysts fear that Opel and Saab both might not have the required scale to survive as standalone companies.

But calls by German politicians for other local automakers to help bail out Opel have been met with a chilled response.

Spokesmen for Daimler AG (DAI) and BMW AG (BMW.XE) said the respective companies aren't interested in buying Opel. A spokesman for Volkswagen AG (VOW.XE) declined to comment.

 
   Company Web site: www.gm.com 
 
   -By Christoph Rauwald, Dow Jones Newswires; +49 69 29 725 512; christoph.rauwald@dowjones.com

(Roman Kessler, Katharina Becker, Andrea Thomas and Ola Kinnander contributed to this report.)