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"Is
it really a good idea that we don't allow the creation of a
European global champion? In doing so, we risk being
outperformed by a Chinese company, over which the European Union
has no influence," Maersk CEO Soren Skou told Danish business
daily Finans.
A Maersk spokeswoman confirmed his comments to Reuters.
Skou is a member of the European Round Table for Industry (ERT),
a lobby group of 55 CEOs and chairs of large European companies.
Last month, the group urged the EU to develop a new strategy to
enhance global competitiveness.
The calls came after Brussels last year blocked a merger of the
rail divisions of Siemens <SIEGn.DE> and Alstom <ALSO.PA>.
The collapse of the deal prompted Germany and France to call for
an overhaul of EU competition policy to better meet global
challenges.
EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said at the time
she had blocked the merger to protect competition in the
European railway industry, dismissing Siemens and Alstom's
argument about merging to compete with their bigger Chinese
state-owned rival CRRC <601766.SS> in the European market.
"Competition policy should not be just about protecting
consumers. That is super important, but if it does not allow us
to build the right European companies that can compete globally,
it could become a huge problem for the EU in the long run," Skou
said.
"We cannot allow the United States and China to win the global
technology race, while we spend our time discussing issues that
belong to industries of the last century."
In response to his comments, a European Commission spokeswoman
told Reuters that EU policy had "not impeded the creation of
European champions".
"Over the years, the commission has cleared numerous large
mergers that created European champions or allowed them to grow,
such as Peugeot's takeover of Opel and InBev's acquisition of
SABMiller," the spokeswoman said.
She added that Siemens and Alstom were already global champions
in the rail sector and that a merger was not needed for them to
be able to compete globally.
(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Kirsten
Donovan and Nick Macfie)
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