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PARIS (Reuters) – The European Union is to approve the rapprochement between the German Siemens and the French group Alstom, said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who announced that he would meet a European regulator to express its support for this agreement.
The Mayor told the French daily newspaper "Journal du Dimanche" that he will meet European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager on 21 January to reiterate France's support for the deal.
"Rejecting the merger between Alstom and Siemens would be both an economic mistake and a political mistake," said The Mayor in an interview published Sunday.
Some people familiar with this case told Reuters on Friday that Siemens' and Alstom's plan to create a European rail champion to face a Chinese rival had failed to convince the regulatory authorities of the competition. EU, despite German and French support.
The EU veto, which will be announced at the beginning of next month, could push Siemens to create its own internal rail technology division, called Siemens Mobility, while retaining a stake.
The planned agreement between Siemens and Alstom would create the second largest railway company in the world, with a total business turnover of about 15 billion euros (17 billion USD), or about the half the size of the Chinese CRRC but twice that of the Canadian company Bombardier.
(1 USD = 0.8797 euros)
(Report by Sudip Kar-Gupta, edited by Daniel Wallis)
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