The head of British defence manufacturer BAE has blamed Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel for last week's collapse of a merger with European aerospace group EADS, in an interview published on Tuesday. "Merkel surprised Tom Enders (the EADS chief executive). He didn't expect her to be so negative towards the deal. It was she who made the deal not go ahead," Dick Olver told The National English-language daily.
A $45-billion (34.7 billion euro) merger to create the biggest aerospace group in the world between EADS and BAE Systems collapsed on Wednesday. "It would have created the most competent, competitive and technologically capable defence company in the world. It was the merger of two very good companies," said Olver.
"The French wanted it, but the Germans didn't. The British government was hugely helpful. We talked to the Americans right up front of the whole process, and the defence department was intrigued. But we never got to the point of explaining it fully to them," he said. France and Germany have equal voting rights in EADS, each accounting for 22.35 percent. Spain owns 5.45 percent stake and the rest is held privately through the stock market.
Analysts said Germany feared being sidelined after such a tie-up and was worried that jobs and factories could go with only one year until an election in Europe's top economy. Germany's defence minister denied that the fault lay with Berlin, and Merkel's spokesman said the "priority now is that EADS continues to develop positively in all its business activities."