The French government raised the rhetoric against the EU’s expected veto of a high-profile planned rail merger between Alstom SA and Siemens AG, calling for a revamp of the region’s antitrust rules and stronger backing of its companies.
“This decision is symptomatic of a certain ideology of the commission that goes against EU interests, ’’ said a French finance ministry official who asked not to be identified according to government rules. The EU’s justification for rejecting the deal is “legally fragile” and diminishes the region’s sovereignty, the person said on Tuesday.
The comments are the latest in an increasingly heated exchange between commission officials and French and German executives and politicians over the troubled deal. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker lashed out at criticism of the long-anticipated decision earlier in the day, saying his message was directed at “those who are saying that the commission is composed of blind, stupid, stubborn technocrats.”
EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager could rule as soon as yesterday on the Siemens-Alstom tie-up, which the companies said would create a European champion able to compete against an expansionist Chinese company. The German and French former rivals are already the biggest in the region and the EU is concerned any combination would be too dominant.
The comments show how politically charged the commission’s scrutiny of the Siemens-Alstom deal has been in recent months. Public rumblings of any kind are unusual in such vetting procedures, with the commission’s antitrust officials usually operating out of the spotlight and free of political meddling.
The commission’s interpretation of EU antitrust rules is too strict, according to the French official. While the rules do not necessarily need to be modified, he said, France will work with Germany on proposals to amend them.
“In some cases the general European interests could prevail over competition considerations,” he said, calling a rejection of the deal a “gift to China” and a move that could hinder other possible steps to consolidate the rail signaling sector.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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