The European Commissioner for Competition is watching. The Alstom-Bombardier merger will be subject to the same treatment – without concession – as the Alstom-Siemens marriage: the project will scrutinize the services of Margrethe Vestager, who rejected the creation of a railway construction giant in February 2019. It she said it killed all competition in the signaling and very high-speed train segments. The threat from the Chinese giant China Railroad Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC), twice as large as the future Franco-German group, had done nothing.
Has the deal changed? Henri Poupart-Lafarge, CEO of Alstom, said "Confident". The two groups have already studied the assets that they are ready to sell in order to get into Brussels' nails. The reform of the competition rules has certainly been decreed "Priority" by the new Commission but the doctrine of Mme Vestager hasn't changed. "We must defend our companies when they face unfair practices, she said after her reappointment. But we don't have a program to create European champions and we shouldn't (in) to have. " When there are, " it is because they have been stimulated by competition, not because they have been fed and pampered ". If it had to be done again, she decided, it would further derail the Alstom-Siemens train.
France, through the voice of its Minister of Economy and Finance, had described this rejection as "Political fault". Bruno Le Maire is scheduled to meet on Tuesday, February 18, with Mme Vestager. At the beginning of the month, he went back to the front, in a letter co-signed with his German, Italian and Polish colleagues, asking him for a deep revision of the 1998 regulation. Some members of the European Union are ready to go against the principle – intangible for Mme Vestager – of primacy of consumers if it is to curb the appetite of the American and Chinese behemoths. And safeguard what remains of European technological sovereignty in key industrial sectors.
A breakthrough favorable to Alstom
With Alstom-Bombardier, and soon Chantiers de l 'Atlantique-Fincantieri, the debate on the "Relevant market" will rebound. With this question: should competition be assessed at the level of the Old Continent, or beyond, in the sectors of industry and services where competition is global, such as in railway construction? There is no "Magic definition" of such a market, according to Mme Vestager; the consumer should just have "An alternative that guarantees the same level of quality and safety". And competitive prices.
