On February 6, 2019, the European Commission banned the marriage between Alstom and Siemens. On July 31, 2020, the same Commission authorized Alstom and Bombardier to join forces. In the meantime, the competition rules have not been changed. So what happened?
Margrethe Vestager, Vice-President of the Commission in charge of Competition, had been pilloried after having judged the Alstom-Siemens project "harmful for competition on the European Union rail market ". Brussels had reasoned in a narrow way, taking into account the single European market, instead of having a global vision of the issues. And, in particular the Chinese threat. Like an incredible snub to Europeans, the Chinese CRRC won the contract for the Porto tramway in Portugal, a few days after the decision against Alstom-Siemens! This world rail number one with 24 billion euros in sales was then authorized by Germany to buy the locomotive manufacturer
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