EU Schizophrenia

Posted on January 20, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized |

Here’s the thing I never quite grasp about the EU, they want the economic upside and mobility of a unified trading nation but wish to preserve the protectionism of a nation-state… something about having one’s cake and eating it too?

I am quite positive that if Nokia was closing a plant in France to open one in Germany, the various ministers and pundits would not be complaining about about “caravan capitalism”. Why should anyone be surprised that Nokia is moving to where the labor is less costly? If Germany wants to do something positive as a reaction to this move, make the necessary changes to attract large manufacturers to Germany, where by all accounts there remains an excellent manufacturing workforce and all of the necessary infrastructure.

Automobile manufacturing has surged in the U.S. as most major German, Korean, and Japanese manufacturer have opened plants in the U.S., or is planning to do so. Will German politicians ban Volkswagens from their fleets now that the company has confirmed they will be opening a major plant in the U.S.? VW features a significant state ownership component, so while Frau Merkel’s ministers lambaste Nokia for leaving Germany they are conspicuously silent on VW’s move to open a 250k unit facility outside of Germany.

BTW, Intel is closing down their D2 fab in Santa Clara, the last of the larger fabs and the only plant in Silicon Valley that Intel has operated for two decades.

Anti-Nokia anger in Germany for closing a factory is growing with politicians publicly ditching the firm’s phones and joining calls for a national boycott in Europe’s largest economy.

The Finnish mobile phone giant said on Tuesday it plans to close the factory in Bochum in the Ruhr industrial heartland and shift production to Romania where labour costs are lower. The closure will result in 2,300 job losses.

[From Anti-Nokia backlash grows in Germany - Yahoo! News]

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