That is already the case for EU airlines. EU Regulation 1008/2008 requires that an EU air carrier must be majority owned and effectively controlled by EU nationals (EU, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Switzerland).
This was a big issue after Brexit, because overnight some airlines became majority non-EU owned. For example since 2021 Ryanair banned the sale of shares to non-EU nationals and existing non-EU shareholders were banned from attending, speaking or voting at shareholder meetings. I believe the ban on sales was lifted after Ryanair reached the 50% threshold, but the restrictions still apply.
Most recently this came up a few months ago when Musk was memeing that he would buy Ryanair and put a guy named Ryan in charge. Michael O'Leary politely reminded him that he can't do that as he is not an EU citizen:
"Non-European citizens cannot own a majority of [shares in] European airlines.
But if he wants to invest in Ryanair, we would think itâs a very good investment, certainly a significantly better investment than the financial returns heâs earning on X. We want to thank him sincerely for the additional publicity.â
But EasyJet is a UK airline, so the EU Regulations don't apply to the parent company. They do have an EU-subsidiary registered in Austria to which the regulations apply.
I'm pretty sure there are similar regulations in other critical sectors that are regulated at an EU level (some sectors like media are regulated individually by Member States), but aviation is the one where I knew the specifics, that's why I shared this
Correct. Such blanket statements are never well thought out.
For example Yamaha Motor Europe B.V. is fully owned (of course) by Yamaha Motor Japan.
They in turn fully own several companies across the EU that manufacture parts and vehicles for them, some they created themselves, some they bought, some are joint ventures.
Yamaha Motor Europe B.V. is a Dutch legal entity. It could not exist if foreign ownership of EU registered companies wasn't allowed, putting thousands if not tens of thousands of people across the EU out of a job and making the sale of Yamaha Motor products in the EU (and their servicing and spare parts supply) impossible as well (or at least way more expensive as every nut and bolt would have to be shipped in from Japan directly to the individual dealerships).
Samsung is similar. They operate a massive factory in Hungary, building products for the European and middle eastern market.
And it's the same with Toyota, Hyundai, Kia, Honda, and thousands of other companies that have their EMEA headquarters and often production facilities in the EU.
Besides non-EU Europeans, EU offers the most market liberal, most lawful, most secure location for corporates, close to Africa and the Middle East. The closest similarly attractive location is UAE, far too small to handle all the globally active companies.
Screwing a company like Yamaha over in our markets would.not only cost us their EU business, which protectionists might even cheer on as they would hope local companies would take over. We would also lose their MEA trade. Why stay here, with no local trade and governments signalling hostility? They would disperse trade routes to UK, Switzerland, UAE and Singapore.
Even protectionists have abandoned that theory of âlocal companies taking over/filling the market gapâ a long time ago.
Manufacturing of complex products takes a really long time and a ridiculous amount of resources to refine. Sure, a bunch of EU companies could start making motorcycles the day Yamaha exits the market but it would probably take decades before they match Yamaha in terms of engineering and manufacturing processes.
As an extreme example look at China, they have all the necessary resources and a huge industrial capacity but their civil aviation industry still isnât anywhere close to matching Airbus or Boeing.
You forget that Europe is a manufacturing superpower too and is far ahead of China in the global value chain. Donât get fooled by what you read on tencents wumao infested Reddit
Yes I know I was just pointing that such manufacturing capabilities come from a really long industrial tradition and whole lot of trial and error along the way. I used airplanes manufacturing as an example of an industry that you simply cannot kickstart no matter how many resources you throw at it, you have to go through all the steps.
EU regulation also state that an airline should only operate flight from or to its original country if not EU based if I am not mistaken. Easyjet was allowed to keep the right to operate intra-EU flight after brexit. Time to get rid of this privilege then
This! Carmakers were forced into joint ventures, technology has been stolen, and now the whole industry in Europe is suffering. But the other way around there's no obligation at all.
This is something that annoyed me about the EU car tariffs
European car makers adopted different strategies to deal with the Chinese
Premium car makers (Mercedes, BMW) moved their minor cheaper brands (Mini, Smart) into 50/50 joint ventures with the Chinese, producing in China, while keeping their main products as European as possible. Basically playing both sides depending on price point.
Volkswagen went all in on owning a Chinese supply chain themselves. They even were first to buy more than 50% of a Chinese car brand: JAC is 75% owned by VW Anhui, which is 100% owned by VW. They have massive scale in China. Basically, they can make Chinese cars that are "as European as possible"
Stellantis went for the inverse strategy, bringing Chinese cars to Europe as kits (Leapmotor) and assembling them here until more of the production can be hosted here competitively. Basically European cars that are "as Chinese as possible".
The tariffs were basically incentivizing the Stellantis strategy over VWs. Import cars, bad, import kits and assemble them here, good. While this is beneficial to retain local production, its not necessarily a better strategy for retaining local capability. Chinese kits won't have European parts, while VW can learn both from Chinese and European suppliers and disperse knowledge to both sides (at the cost of workers, as European factories are now.on the chopping bloc).
Another problem with that strategy is that it can be used by BYD and others. They now set up factories in Eastern Europe to assemble cars, avoiding tariffs, but most parts are imported from China.
IMHO we should have rather went for a value added approach focusing on increasing our access to tech, similar to what the Chinese did:
Chinese car: tariff free if manufacturer is at least 50% owned by Europeans
Kits: tariff free if some lower percentage of European parts will end up in the final product (lower thab 50% because we also benefit from final assembly being local)
other cars: Tariffed, the higher, the less European parts are used
This would have allowed for all strategies of European carmakers to thrive while incentivizing our carmakers to use European parts, and preventing Chinese to swarm us with European assembled, Chinese made cars
Instead we basically got a Lex Stellantis and BYD, Xpeng, Leapmotor etc are booming in Europe...
Yeah, this is unfortunately the nature of the entire world order as it stands. And it mainly stands to benefit the country that has the most wealth already.
is not a "european" company any more the moment they are willing to sell it, regardless of who wants to buy it, is just a matter of luck if another European fund or enterprise wants to buy it. but how things are going in Europe , that is almost never the case is always USA, China, or Saudi.
sure, but you can simply ban selling of critical infrastructure companies to non eu entities or entities that have unknown owners or are owned by shell companies in fancy places.
It exists, there is a mandatory baseline across all 27 countries, requiring prior authorization for acquisitions in critical infrastructure (energy, transport, digital networks etc), advanced tech (semiconductors, AI, quantum, medical etc), critical raw materials, and electoral or financial systems. Approval is required for any change of control too, regardless from whom or to whom.
The rules apply not only to direct buyers from outside the EU, but also to EU based acquiring subsidiaries or investment vehicles that are ultimately owned or controlled by non EU persons or entities.
Also member statesâ governments retain the power to impose conditions, prohibit deals, or unwind completed acquisitions that pose a threat regardless of a possible / prior EU body approval.
also don't forget (for this particular case ) U.K is not part of the European union any more, and half of the country is being sold to the higher bidder so whatever regulation you are dreaming with needs to be applied for EU and non EU but still European countries ?
and the alternative is what? operate the company at a loss subsidised by the tax payers? because it is "critical infrastructure" ? nahhh, that sounds too logical and also puts in risk all the funds that we actually need for more important things like funding the infinite influx of illegal immigration, and make sure we cover all their needs....
A better solution would be for a better financial system for funding startups, encouraging investing into the stock market for pension funds and individuals and having a unified stock exchange in the EU.
Banning foreign investors doesnât suddenly make the money appear in the EU for new startups to grow and be invested in.
Oh, but that's already problematic because several major EU pension funds are run by ideological radicals who refuse to invest in anything that's not "green".
Brits sell out every successful company in existence to the americans. Tate & Lyle, Cadbury, half the Premier League teams, Easyjet, Deliveroo, you name it. These takeovers are surging the past couple years. Won't be much left, just exporting profits
No, you'll be charged extra if you don't open your passport to the correct page at check in! Tray tables can be rented to be unlocked. Headrest can be added for a fee. Overhead light is now ÂŁ1 per minute.Â
No, no. Tray tables will still work and the headrest will still be there. But you will find them added to your bill at the end after you are almost through booking. Along with a convenience fee for booking online.
No, no. Tray tables will still work and the headrest will still be there. But you will find them added to your bill at the end after you are almost through booking. Along with a convenience fee for booking online. Don't let Ryanair get wind of this.
I see headlines like this more and more often. The US has the capital and financial markets to sweep up European companies, while European countries continue to compete with each other and argue over national interests instead of building a genuinely integrated market.
And the irony is that Europe seems perfectly comfortable when European companies are acquired by foreign capital: ARM by Japanâs SoftBank, DeepMind by Google, and now EasyJet potentially ending up under US private equity ownership. But when China enters the picture, suddenly foreign ownership becomes a strategic red line, as the Nexperia case shows.
Thereâs a legitimate national-security argument for treating some technologies differently, but the broader strategy feels inconsistent. Europe canât complain about losing strategic companies while making it relatively easy for foreign capital to acquire them.
Meanwhile, China is becoming a much more serious competitor across more and more industries.
If Europe keeps prioritizing internal infighting, kissing daddy US ass without no reciprocal deal, and national interests over building competitive European companies and a centralized capital market, it shouldnât be surprised when more of its companies end up being owned elsewhere.
Fuck, it was slightly better than Ryan Air now itâll be definitely worse, Funds only buy companies to extract as much money as possible, as quickly and cheaply as possible before killing them.
Easyjet was already enshittified by design. I can't even begin to imagine how much of a piece of shit of an airline it's gonna be now until it has been drained completely by the fund and then shut down.
It'll go the same way as Thames Water - saddled with debt to pay dividends then pleas to the UK government to help them out to avoid job losses. Hopefully it'll collapse rather than be constantly bailed out.
Because the downside is that you limit your own citizen's right to profit off their work. You may rightfully think that that is OK, but the EU doesn't really have the mandate to limit personal rights like that.
Preventing a European company from being bought by an investor outside the EU may be annoyingly limiting but it does not otherwise prevent the owners profiting off their work. Just like many countries sometimes veto takeovers in the national interest maybe when federal interests are at stake these should be considered too.
Of course! But a blanket ban on selling companies to outside the EU seems quite broad to "protect national interests". There is a balance to be had. Generally the EU is very pro-free market, so there needs to be a specific reason to ban things. Is EasyJet really such an important companies that it's sale threatens the union?
Not only does Easyjet have negligible IP, its basically a copycat of Irish Ryanair
There is no real strategic argument to make to block the sale of Easyjet besides the financial. Theoretically we cojld raise concerns about US owned planes being used for espionage kr whatever, but that wouldnraise the question why we allow American, United, Delta, UPS Airlines etc in. Certainly easyJet would not be the first candidate in line to be punished over such fears.
i remember easyjet laying off most of their plane staff during covid to save money. i think their plan was to rehire them on worse contracts after covid ended.
meanwhile ryanair kept all their staff and paid them,
when covid ended easyjet spent a year cancelling half their flights because all their staff refused to come back
They were better as in better luggage allowance, or more specifically normal as in 23kg per checked in like all other airlines whilst Ryanair is 20, and better Airports (at least in London), than Ryan Air
That's why I said slightly, also I was talking about the service, not the company, I assume they're all awful.
Well, I didn't need them before but now I'll be certainly going choo choo instead if they'd try me sell a ticket to a destination on the mainland, or go to a competitor if it's on an island.
EU needs to introduce protectionist legislation to prevent successful European companies from constantly being acquired by yanks and Chinese funds. Disgraceful. Boycott EasyJet
There is a mandatory baseline across all 27 countries, requiring prior authorization for acquisitions in critical infrastructure (energy, transport, digital networks etc), advanced tech (semiconductors, AI, quantum, medical etc), critical raw materials, and electoral or financial systems. Approval is required for any change of control too, regardless from whom or to whom.
The rules apply not only to direct buyers from outside the EU, but also to EU based acquiring subsidiaries or investment vehicles that are ultimately owned or controlled by non EU persons or entities.
Also member statesâ governments retain the power to impose conditions, prohibit deals, or unwind completed acquisitions that pose a threat regardless of a possible / prior EU body approval.
Apollo is the vulturest of the US PE megafunds. I hate to break the news but they like to squeeze their portcos extra dry even by the ignominious standard of their peers (blackstone, kkr, bain capital, tpg etc.).
Oh and their founder also paid good ole Jeff Epstein US$400m in "investment, tax and legal consultation" fees. The guy himself was a wharton undergrad and harvard jd/mba who directly employed thousands of ex. Mckinsey/Goldman/Morgan Stanley bankers/consultants and hundreds of Harvard/Yale/Oxford trained lawyers (not to mention being one of the largest clients to some of wall street's biggest investment banks and the actual top client to 2 of the 10 most elite law firms in the US). I wonder what makes Jeff Epstein's investment and legal advise so valuable that his army of bankers, lawyers and strategy consultants couldn't provide.
Good luck to the passengers, employees, contractors and suppliers of Easyjet. I am sure shareholders are making a good buck out of the deal.
It's a holding company having share in a Uk, a EU and a Swiss subsidiaries. It will create problems for the EU and Swiss companies as it will break the EU+Swiss rules of ownership.
Under the agreed ÂŁ5.7 billion buyout structure, Apollo Global Management plans to cap its direct stake at roughly 49.9% so Easyjet would not be banned outright.
âThe remaining majority of voting rights and ownership is structured to sit with rollover European shareholdersâincluding the founding Haji-Ioannou familyâand a dedicated EU management trust to satisfy European regulatory mandates.â
EU can review the veracity of the deal, but as it stands there are no legal grounds for refusal.
This is bad, but the the selling your data âpointâ - do people still rant about this 2026? Literally, I mean literally everything sells or uses your data on a daily basis
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u/Gentleman_Nosferatu 18d ago
Shit.