BAE-Airbus issues go much deeper than jobs
- 7 Apr 06, 09:24 AM
* From now until after Easter this blog will become more blog-like and less of a DIY newspaper about Bolivia. I am back, my long-form Bolivia stuff goes out on 大象传媒 World/N24 on Saturday morning (in that slot I call "hangover TV") and I am on leave for more than a week. I will mostly be round and about the British Library, a prospect which makes me emit that . I will keep blogging, but it will be wierd because I might blog about something but someone else will be reporting it on the telly. For example:
Most of the reporting of BAE Systems decision to sell its stake in Airbus to EADS has focused on the jobs issue. This has already elicited strong affirmations that the jobs are safe for the people who make the wings of the A380. But there are bigger things at stake: the future of BAE and the future of British military-industrial strategy (if there is one)....
For some time BAE has been faced with a choice: it is no longer seen as a "national champion" (Geoff Hoon famously said should not be seen as a British company while he himself as Defence Secretary was in posession of a golden share in it) . So should it be part of the drive to create continental champions in Europe and America, and if so, can it be in both camps? The short answer to the last part of that question is no. By divesting its stake in the one big strategic pan-European civilian aerospace project it tells us where it is headed.
That being sorted, what about Britain? It is, in a way, faced with the same choices as BAE. It has already decided it will buy more off-the-peg military kit on a "what is best" rather than "who makes it" basis. In addition it has decided to it needs capacity to inter-operate strategically with the USA's armed forces. But most of Britain's military-industrial spending on development is done in the European context: for example the it has commissioned, designed to inter-operate with the French navy.
If BAE moves to America (its failed attempt to acquire L3 will not be the last attempt to get itself the corporate equivalent of a green card) then a prospect opens up of Britain having a pick and mix industrial strategy (on top of its pick and pix defence procurement policy). It is the biggest customer for EADS . The next two big Euro defence projects are the and . It will be interesting to see how European the MoD feels about these when the time comes to commit money in order to secure the relevant number of hi-tech development and production jobs.
Over and out.
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Isn't this more about the loss of technology skills and the loss of highly skilled engineers? Your item seems to dismiss this.
If we keep losing these skills we really will become a nation of ahopkeepers - well service industries.
The balance of payments - which no-one really seems to take much interest in these days will surely suffer if we stop exporting vey high value add goods.
Then who is going to pick up the tab?
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Just a general point. The thing I've never quite understood is the cultural/political place of the arms industry in Britain. In the US the Military industrial complex - the close links between politicians, the civil service and the private sector - is a well known concept, hey Gil Scott Heron's even written a song about the MIC. Yet directly comparable relations are approached completely different in Britain, despite the frequent sharing of staff, strategic (and profitable) contracts and so on, carried on - with few exceptions - with far less critiscm. Just a thought really
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I certainly think it is necessary to have a national champion, as who is going to buy from BAE if even we don't support our own companies? We see economic nationalism across the world, whether it be the Gaz de France/Suez debacle in France, or the USA blocking the takeover of P&O, to other EU governments fighting tooth and nail to retain jobs in their respective countries. Britain just doesn't seem to do that anymore and it is a shame - do we have no compassion for our own industries?
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"the biggest customer for EADS Eurofighter Typhoon"
eh.. it is the Eurofighter GmbH Eurofighter Typhoon, a consortium of BAE, EADS and Alenia. To describe it as the "EADS Typhoon" is misleading. They might have the biggest share (with DASA and CASA merger) but BAE and its predecessors were responsible for the major strides in the development, Marconi Avionics (then BAE Avionics and now SELEX) lead the radar design and the EJ200 engine is derived from an MOD funded Rolls-Royce engine.
Credit where credits due!!
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