Archive : EU blocks British car rescue package

A British government package aimed at saving thousands of jobs at a major car manufacturing plant in Birmingham, Central England, has been blocked by the European Commission. The Rover car plant, at Longbridge, is owned by the German company BMW, and employs some nine thousand people.

But it has had a history of financial troubles and BMW threatened to close the Longbridge plant and transfer its work to Hungary. The Commission wants to investigate whether the one hundred and fifty-two million pounds aid package, offered by the British government to BMW earlier this year to keep the plant open, is against EU law. Correspondents say the dispute centres on whether the government broke EU competition law and on how serious BMW was about relocating to Hungary.

Keith Adams
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2 Comments

  1. This would have been investment in the 55, and was pulled by the EU just before BMW pulled the plug on Rover. The amount in question, c.£100m, was relative peanuts in Government terms, and might have saved the company. UK Government weren’t to blame- they couldn’t put the money in withot breaking EU state aid rules. It was so close…

  2. this is why we are the laughing stock of the world,governed by the EU,if this was france or germany it would be a done deal,like the illegal transaction from the german govt to keep opel going and out of magnas hands and that is no critisism.In fact had it been stopped in franch i bet there would have been riots,the trouble with the EU in thier masterplan is for GB to be a service industry and germany to be the manufactoring powerhouse(it already is)think im joking?every town in germany is virtually ablaze with engineering shops-crane making,diecasting you name it.IM no little englander but its about time the traffic became two way.Anyway balls to the EU ive never known anyone get a fair slice of its cake.I agree the 100m is chicken feed given that the insignia cost a billion to develop.

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