The death of the golden share

Martin Vander Weyer

27 October 2007

‘A triumph for the European Commission’ (as USA Today chose to describe it) is not something usually to be celebrated here. But yesterday’s finding by the European Court of Justice against Germany’s ‘VW law’ – protecting Volkswagen against takeover via a blocking minority vote held by the state – really does look like a blow for greater dynamism, industrial synergy, and efficient use of capital throughout Europe.

In Britain, the golden share was used to allow the government a continuing hand in the destiny of privatized businesses – but this ruling seems to mean that the device has finally had its day. Similar mechanisms protecting German and Portuguese energy companies, Telecom Italia and a variety of businesses in Hungary and Poland are now in competition commissioner Charlie McCreevy’s sights. Rulings have already been made against the Dutch government blocking powers in relation to postal and telecoms services. The French will now have to watch their step with EADS, the aerospace group, and Thales in the defence sector. Some 23 British entities, including Royal Mail, British Energy, which runs our nuclear power stations, and the Rosyth and Devonport naval dockyards, still have golden share arrangements, but can now expect to forfeit them if challenged.

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David Lindsay

October 24th, 2007 5:01pm Report this comment

Anyone still disputing that the "free" market is utterly unconservative, or that the EU and globalisation are but one threat to national self-government? "Of these three strands of golden-share logic – security, protectionism, patriotic sentiment – the last two really have to be set aside in a globalised economy." Priceless.

Max Kaye

October 24th, 2007 6:58pm Report this comment

David Linsay, You obviously have misunderstood the meaning of the word conservative.

David Lindsay

October 25th, 2007 10:12am Report this comment

Well "patriotic sentiment" seems pretty central to it, wouldn't you say? Do you believe in the conservation or restoration of such good things as national self-government (the only basis for international co-operation, and including the United Kingdom as greater than the sum of its parts), local variation, historical consciousness, family life, the whole Biblical and Classical patrimony of the West, agriculture, manufacturing, small business, close-knit communities, law and order, civil liberties, academic standards, all forms of art, mass political participation within a constitutional framework, and respect for the absolute sanctity of each individual human life from the point of fertilisation to the point of natural death? If so, then you cannot possibly beleive in "free" market capitalism, which corrodes each and all of them to nought, both directly and by driving despairing millions into the arms of equally corrosive Jacobinism, Marxism, anarchism or Fascism. If you believe in the "free" market, then you are not a conservative. What, exactly, does the "free" market conserve?

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