“Britain’s vote last week to leave the European Union is an opportunity to ease off on the bloc’s ‘suicidal’ antitrust stance against industrial mergers, the head of French telecoms operator Numericable-SFR, Michel Combes, said on Wednesday,” Reuters reports.
“The French telecoms sector faces fierce price competition, but repeated attempts to consolidate have foundered, partly due to antitrust policies that limit national market share in the name of consumer protection,” Reuters reports. “‘If Brexit can serve as a revealer – an awakening of consciousness on the grave crisis facing Europe (generally) – that would be a good thing,’ SFR Chairman and Chief Executive Combes told France’s National Assembly. ‘We think it is necessary to go ahead with a complete revamp of competition policy which today is suicidal for European interests – notably for our industry,’ he said.”
Reuters reports, “‘We really need to permit some European champions to emerge,’ Combes said, to challenge what he called the ‘Gafas’ – a reference to U.S-based tech giants Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We realize there’s some translation going on here, but the way to produce European champions is not to “permit,” but to unleash. Champions generally cannot and do not rise with gargantuan sclerotic bumbledom on their backs.
SEE ALSO:
How Brexit is already impacting Apple – June 28, 2016
How the UK’s Brexit vote to leave European Union affects Apple – June 25, 2016
Apple CEO Cook lobbies EU antitrust chief over Irish back taxes – January 21, 2016
Apple may face $8 billion bill for back taxes after European Commission probe – January 15, 2016