Siemens-Alstom merger

Blog Post

European champion-ships: industrial champions and competition policy

This blog post investigates the debate on whether European competition rules should foster European industrial champions, or allow national champions to grow to a European scale. It explores the criteria that one would intuitively ascribe to industrial champions, illustrating the difficulties in defining either ‘European’ or ‘Champion’. It then conducts a brief look into whether EU Merger decisions have impeded the formation of ‘European Champions’.

By: Mathew Heim, Catarina Midões and Bruegel Topic: Digital economy and innovation Date: July 26, 2019

Blog Post

The Alstom-Siemens merger and the need for European champions

What’s at stake: The European Commission blocked the merger between Alstom and Siemens, triggering the ire of the French and German governments. A Franco-German proposal to revamp merger control in the EU has given rise to a lively debate on the need for European champions.

By: Konstantinos Efstathiou and Bruegel Topic: Digital economy and innovation Date: March 11, 2019

Opinion

What can the EU do to keep its firms globally relevant?

There is a fear that EU companies will find it increasingly difficult to be on top of global value chains. Many argue that EU-based firms simply lack the critical scale to compete and, in order to address this problem, that Europe’s merger control should become less strict. But the real question is where the EU can strengthen itself beyond the realm of competition policy.

By: Georgios Petropoulos, Guntram B. Wolff and Bruegel Topic: Digital economy and innovation, Macroeconomic policy Date: February 15, 2019