Ford chief operating officer, Mark Fields, says the closing of sites in Europe were “difficult decisions,” but is satisfied they were handled in the right way.

The shuttering of the Belgian plant in Genk in particular has caused significant union reaction, with some estimates predicting up to 11,000 direct and indirect jobs could be axed.

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Ford also axed the Transit van assembly plant in Southampton, as well as the stamping and tooling operations in Dagenham.

Genk is situated in the Limburg region of Belgium that saw a previous wave of redundancies when the coal mining industry was badly hit in the 1980s and the ABVV union has cautioned unemployment could soar 30% following Ford’s planned closure.

“We think where we are right now in terms of the plan in European transformation – we are satisfied with the appropriate direction,” Fields told just-auto on the sidelines of this week’s Automotive News World Congress in Detroit.

“It is difficult decisions but what we wanted to do was to be straight and treat them with integrity. Many of them, we were able to place in other locations.”

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The COO also highlighted the automaker’s relief Ford CEO, Alan Mulally, had committed his future to the automaker, rather than, as some speculation had hinted, making a move to Microsoft.

Talk started last year Mulally was on the short list of candidates to replace Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, who plans to step down.

“We are very glad the speculation is over and now [we are] totally focused on delivering these great launches and using this year as a very important building block,” said Fields.