
European companies can't compete against global giants - wpaladin
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/17/european-companies-cant-compete-against-global-giants
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ThJ
I suspect this is a matter of ideologies. A constellation of tangential
policies derived from various ideological values widely held in Europe
conspire to make it difficult for tech giants to exist.

You can't build a boat if you don't recognise the existence of the sea, are
opposed to things that float and require all boats to have holes in them.

It's obvious when stated like that, but now replace the boat with attitudes
and policies that indirectly affect the viability of tech startups.

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perfunctory
At the same time people across the pond begin to wake up to the dangers of
monopolies and start calling for the break up of the tech giants.

What a propaganda article

"Under the pretext of protecting the European consumer from the creation of a
potential monopoly, Brussels prevented the French and German companies from
becoming a world leader in rail, even though their main competitor, the
Chinese CRRC, is already twice as big as Alstom and Siemens combined."

Pretext? Really? How about it _did_ actually protect the European consumer
from the creation of a potential monopoly?

"“It seems certain that electrification will permanently penalise the German
economy over the next few years,” said Dirk Schumacher, an economist at
Natixis, who believes that if nothing is done, Germany’s car sector could lose
half a million jobs by 2030."

German car industry has only itself to blame. They dragged their feet for
years and engaged in diesel frauds instead of investing in EV. Creating a
monopoly is not gonna fix that.

EDIT: formatting

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NotPaidToPost
It did not protect consumers against anything.

As often this was a decision to uphold ideological purity in the face of
reality and at the expense of European industry itself.

