The ICE-Bauer Siemens and French TGV manufacturer Alstom wanted to be close together. The EU Commission has Concerns about the competition, and will Veto it, report it to several agencies.
A ICE and TGV in train station Gare de l’est in Paris (archive image)
The EU’s competition authorities will be the proposed rail merger of Siemens and the French competitor Alstom, the news agencies dpa and afp report citing well-informed circles in Brussels. The large-scale project of a “Airbus of the Rail” is likely to be failed. Details of the decision will announce EU competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager on Wednesday, report agencies.
The ICE-manufacturer, Siemens, and the TGV builders, Alstom had agreed on a year, your train sectors to the world’s second-largest train manufacturers merge to be able to, especially in the international competition with the Chinese market leader CRRC.
Concerns of the antitrust guard not removed
The EU Commission had, however, from the outset, considerable concern that the merger would be prejudicial to the internal competition in Europe and ultimately to the consumer. The EU Commission argues not only for the protection of the European competition, they also expects that the Chinese Large-scale railway-group-CRRC is of the essence in the coming years in a big way on the European market.
Competition Commissioner Vestager saw the fusion projects in the past few weeks extremely critical. They demanded that Siemens and Alstom, among other things, wide-ranging Disposals in the signal technology and many years of licensing of technology for high-speed trains.
At the end of January, the two companies went again in an unusual step concessions. There was, however, speculated that this may not be enough.
Support from Berlin and Paris, unsuccessfully
The Federal government and the French government had done very much for the Deal. Federal Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU), had demanded, there had to be European “Champions” in the industry, with China and the USA compete. Similar to France’s economic and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said. Altmaier also brought Changes to the EU competition law into the game.
No second calls for merger
Alstom’s boss, Henri Poupart-Lafarge said the oneline edition of the daily newspaper “Le Figaro”: “A Veto from Brussels for the Zugfusion would be a very bad sign for the European industry.” In this case, there would be no new start-up of pages of Alstom’s: “There will be no second Chance.” Poupart-Lafarge criticized the attitude of the Commission will be determined by “ideological prejudices”. “When we defend the creation of a European Champions, to understand certain of the Responsible of the Commission’s monopoly,” lamented the head of the company.
qu/uh (dpa, afp)