The spring brings great deals. The companies of the USA are full of cash, perhaps also due to the largesse of the government, which tried to maintain or possibly increase the number of people working in the industry of   the country.

First, General Electric decided to buy the energy division of Alstom, a big French company for heavy engineering and machinery.   General Electric  (GE) , one of the largest industrial company in  the United States , has had   a long presence in France , and knows well how to operate  there  Alstom  shareholders have already expressed their acceptance   of the American take over , as the offer  to them was perhaps  slightly above the immediate value of the company. And, of course, GE is ready to consider any request from the government of the guest country which would not alter the basic nature of the deal.

However, the French government did not like the proposal and   decided to reconsider, saying that it will try to regulate the meeting of the various parts according to the “French interest” of which it is the best interpreter. The French State did not stop to that.  It also brought forward a fully fledged different proposal.  Instead of being sold , Alstom  should enter in  a Joint Venture with Siemens, a similarly sized engineering German company,  which  would sell to Alstom its group  producing  the high speed trains , in which Alstom is a leader , and obtain from it the energy division.

The idea  was considered  quite interesting  by the Germans , because it would   give the opportunity to   repeat in  the  ground transport what was done for  air transport , with the  great European Airbus  effectively  competing with the Americans in international flights .

The fast train is now the most interesting development in the field of long distance ground transport, and Alstom is very well positioned in that sector. One interesting element in this story is that   this proposal was advanced by the French government, on behalf of national interest, but involving also Germany.  and, actually, the whole European economy. We may  understand  this position considering  the  French tradition  going  back to Colbert ,  the great  French minister whose  basic attitude  was reinforced , and not weakened , by the Great Revolution.

Second,  but not of minor interest, ,  is the offer of the American Pfizer, a large producer of pharmaceuticals, which wants to buy  the UK company AstraZeneca , a similar producer of  pharmaceuticals . That company originated from the dissolution of the majestic ICI Imperial Chemical Industries.

 ICI was a large company  created in the Thirties  of the last century , when the Empire was still there ,  putting  together all the UK chemical and pharmaceutical producers  in  a  great single  multiproduct  unite company. ICI was dissolved, in the second half of the last century, in a large number of companies, of which AstraZeneca,   which is now well known for its capacity for research and innovation. The case is quite different from the Alstom-GE one.

In the case of AstraZeneca, the present management and, also a number of shareholders, are strongly refusing the offer feeling that the company will lose or radically weaken the scope of independent research, an area in which AstraZeneca is quite well known. The UK government reacted by requesting assurances on employment levels, including the location in London of twenty per cent of the combined group responsible for research and innovation.  It gave, substantially, the impression to be explicitly   in favor of the takeover, although it tries to repeat that the decision was up to the shareholders.

On the other side, in Italy, there are similar negotiations between Italian companies and foreign ones:  but the Italian Government behaved very differently from the French and English ones.  It has shown no interest, and advanced no proposal, for example, on the negotiations for the selling of Alitalia, the Italian flag bearer. The government has abstained from the negotiations   , as if they were simply some discussions between two private companies, free to do what they decide.   An attitude that prolongs that taken by the Italian government some years ago, in the great sales of the companies owned by   the IRI, the    multisectoral State owned company, which was liquidated. And a large part of the companies   that were sold are by now shut down for ever.

We must ask ourselves a simple question. If the State has no idea about selling or not selling an international company, the flag bearer, which serves its citizens flying abroad and in the country, what are   its job and its responsibility toward its citizens?  All States control   a number of sectors, for example, energy, and each of them tries to support its own people working in industry and services.   Is the Italian government pursuing the wellbeing of its citizens? Is it interested in the whole of the Italian economy?  Doing nothing and letting things go, they will eventually succeed to compel the Holy Father to fly in a plane owned and run by Muslims.    The