It's all very shocking, really. Never would I have expected such a move within the EU because protectionism never happens. Sure they have countless active programs that could easily be labeled protectionism but mentioning it might make people mad.
France was embroiled in a protectionism row yesterday after the government announced that the assembly of some Renault cars would be shifted from Slovenia to the Paris area, creating 400 new jobs.To answer Sarkozy's question, factories in Eastern Europe are required so the big firms (beyond the auto industry) want to pay people peanuts without job protections. They all do it so if he wants to raise the subject, pick any CAC40 company and spend 5 minutes reading.
President Nicolas Sarkozy later insisted that the move would not cause any job losses in a fellow EU state, but the European Commission said it planned to launch an investigation.
M. Sarkozy infuriated eastern European members of the EU last month when he linked €6bn (£5.6bn) in cheap loans to the struggling French auto industry to a guarantee that car-making jobs would remain in France. He even questioned why French car firms needed plants in eastern Europe at all. Alarm bells rang in Brussels and across eastern Europe yesterday morning when the French Industry Minister, Luc Chatel, announced that production of some Clio cars would transfer from Slovenia to a giant Renault assembly plant at Flins in the Seine valley, west of Paris.
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