{"id":7187,"date":"2019-02-06T13:16:08","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T13:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/french-german-rail-merger-blocked-by-brussels\/"},"modified":"2019-02-06T13:16:08","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T13:16:08","slug":"french-german-rail-merger-blocked-by-brussels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/french-german-rail-merger-blocked-by-brussels\/","title":{"rendered":"French-German rail merger blocked by Brussels"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"TGVImage copyright<\/span>
\n Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

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Image caption<\/span>
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\n Alstom makes TGV high-speed trains
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Brussels has knocked down a proposed French-German rail merger, designed to help Europe compete with China.<\/p>\n

The EU’s competition commission blocked the tie-up, saying uniting France’s Alstom with the rail arm of Germany’s Siemens would lead to higher prices.<\/p>\n

The firms had said the merger would create an industrial champion on a par with other global players.<\/p>\n

France’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire said the decision would “serve the interests of China”.<\/p>\n

“The Commission prohibited the merger because the companies were not willing to address our serious competition concerns,” Margrethe Vestager, the European competition commissioner said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Without sufficient remedies, this merger would have resulted in higher prices for the signalling systems that keep passengers safe and for the next generations of very high-speed trains,” she added.<\/p>\n

Siemens makes ICE trains for Deutsche Bahn and builds units for Channel Tunnel operator Eurostar. Alstom manufactures France’s TGV bullet train amongst other rolling stock and signalling systems. <\/p>\n

The tie-up would have created an entity with revenues of approximately \u20ac15bn (\u00a313bn) with significant operations across Europe’s rail network. <\/p>\n

But China’s state owned railway behemoth CRRC, the largest global player, has been competing more aggressively for overseas contracts in recent years.<\/p>\n

Change rules<\/h2>\n

In December Alstom and Siemens submitted proposals to address the Commission’s competition concerns. These included selling signalling and rolling stock products. But the measures failed to satisfy the competition authority.<\/p>\n

But those supporting the deal, including government ministers in both France and Germany said the Commission should look beyond Europe in sectors such as transport and banking.<\/p>\n

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said Berlin and Paris were working on a proposal to change European competition rules.<\/p>\n

Siemens’ chief executive Joe Kaeser said: “Europe urgently needs structural reform… protecting customer interests locally must not mean that Europe cannot be on a level playing field with leading nations like China, the United States and others.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source<\/a> by [author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Alstom makes TGV high-speed trains Brussels has knocked down a proposed French-German rail merger, designed to help Europe compete with China. The EU’s competition commission blocked the tie-up, saying uniting France’s Alstom with the rail arm of Germany’s Siemens would lead to higher prices. The firms had said the … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}