Re: 1300 Bombardier (UKs last Railway stock producer) jobs being lost
 

I don't know who is worse....cmonstanley or Mancie. I just like to think of them as Dumb and Dumber.

It probably is the case that Bombardier, as a global entity, is worth billions; but it's UK(EU) subsidiary ain't worth much. Siemens is worth far more than Bombardier internationally and it's main EU (German) operation is worth far more than Bombardier (UK).

The problem with EU bid rules on public sector tendering is that cross-subsidy and financing from outside the EU is not allowed (it's a Franco-German plot to keep out the nasty yanks). Therefore Bombardier UK has to raise the initial finance themselves without resource to it's Canadian parent. That means the banks are going to charge them an awful lot of money, an interest cost built into it's bid submission, a bid which turned out to be far more expensive than that of self-financing Siemens.

It's all a load of bollocks, of course, but it's something we have to live with while we're in the so-called EU. The best thing we can do is to get out, but failing that we should play by the same rules as the scumbags across the channel, which means, for intstance we don't automatically advertise in the OJ (Official Journal of the EU) every time a major engineering project needs undertaking. Currently, a half of such adverts are from the UK....a totally disproportionate number. if we want a job done in the UK, then just give the work to a British company and stuff the rest of 'em.

Re: 1300 Bombardier (UKs last Railway stock producer) jobs being lost
 

The other way around it is to be so specific that only brit firms are eligible to tender for the contracts.......this what many French or German firms do to circumvent the rules........another way is to break the contract into many small parts so that it flies below the radar of the EU rules.
We are daft, we apply the rules to the letter...which is pretty much why this contract is going abroad...sad isn't it?

I really don't think Mancies believed that I knew what you were talking about.........but as I said, I don't always put in the window what I have in the shop....and I have more oil in my lamp than to translate just because he is to idle to either use his brain, or to google the answers.