[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 104 (Tuesday, July 22, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S7873]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                     PROTECTION OF AIRBUS INDUSTRIE

 Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the European Community is engaged 
in the blatant misuse of its authority to review United States mergers 
shamelessly to protect Airbus Industrie. It has decided that it will 
use its authority to block the merger of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. 
Its rationale is that the combined commercial aircraft company poses 
too great a risk to Airbus Industrie.
  For the past 25 years, America has watched the Europeans pour 
billions of dollars of subsidies into Airbus Industrie to create what 
is now without question a highly competitive aircraft company. Airbus 
Industrie today boasts more than 30 percent of the global market for 
large jet transports. Its goal is to have 50 percent of the market and 
it is aggressively pursuing that goal. Many of us were shocked with 
French President Chirac's shameless pursuit of aircraft orders in China 
in exchange for the French's Government's commitment to defeat a U.N. 
human rights resolution.
  Airbus Industrie has already destroyed the viability of the Douglas 
Aircraft Co. Airbus' market share has come largely at the expense of 
McDonnell Douglas, which last year had only 4 percent of the market. 
Now the Europeans, in a final blow to Douglas, want the Boeing Co. to 
divest itself of Douglas Aircraft Co. and put the 14,000 remaining 
Douglas employees out on the street.
  While most Americans will find it inconceivable, the Europeans do in 
fact have the legal authority to block this American merger. This is 
true even though neither Boeing nor McDonnell Douglas have significant 
operations in Europe and despite the fact that our own Government has 
thoroughly reviewed the merger and approved it without conditions.
  The Europeans have disregarded our own exhaustive review process in 
the United States.
  The Boeing Co. has engaged in a good-faith effort to try to address 
the concerns raised by the European Commission about the merger--but to 
no avail. Nevertheless, the EC plans to block the merger. This means 
that Boeing aircraft may well be prevented from being sold in Europe.
  From the very beginning, the European merger review proceedings have 
been dominated by the political considerations of the Airbus member 
sales. I warned the President about this in a May letter on this 
subject. My colleagues in the Senate supported my sense-of-the-Senate 
resolution on the subject last week.
  The United States can no longer stand aside and allow Europe 
blatantly to protect Airbus at the expense of our own civil aircraft 
industry and our own American employees. The administration should send 
a clear signal that it will not allow this type of protectionism to 
continue and that we will retaliate decisively if the Europeans block 
the merger.
  The European Commission's indifference to appropriate antitrust 
considerations and its undisguised protectionism was expressed candidly 
by the EC's Karl Van Miert on Tuesday, July 15 on Belgian radio: ``The 
EC does not want a competitive market, it wants a guaranteed 
market.''

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