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ASML's boss has a warning for Europe
- mitchbob 2y agohttps://archive.ph/2025.03.28-160828/https://www.economist.com/business/2025/03/25/asmls-boss-has-a-warning-for-europe https://archive.ph/2025.03.28-160828/https://www.economist.c...
- closewith 2y agoThe answer to these corporate threats is and should always be nationalisation. Not the threat of nationalisation, just immediate aquisition by the state.
- isoprophlex 2y ago... and letting them sell to China, if only to piss off the White House
- buckle8017 2y ago[flagged]
- closewith 2y agoThe people working there generally enjoy their lives in Europe and generally aren't looking to move - that's to appease shareholders. > What's next slavery for key industries? Corporate slavery is fine by me. Corporate entities have no inherent rights and trying to evoke the enormous human misery of real slavery to shut down calls for corporate regulation is both transparently disingenuous and morally reprehensible.
- yoyohello13 2y agoThe human beings doing actual work will still be paid. Just the shareholders lose out.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deadbabe 2y agoThe answer to such attempts at nationalisation is poison pill clauses.
- amelius 2y agoI bet most companies can survive a management self-destruct. (Also, while a poison pill threat can be a good management decision, taking the poison pill is a seriously bad management decision. So a government can just bet on that.)
- nand_gate 2y agoWould actually help most places than hinder, I think.
- atemerev 2y ago"most companies can survive a management self-destruct" — if it is an oil extraction company, maybe. Otherwise, knowledge and processes can be easily destroyed for good.
- deadbabe 2y agoIf the company can survive then it just means you need to make the poison pill stronger.
- closewith 2y agoI suggest you read the EU Takeover Directive and the associated transposition into NL law. Such shareholder rights plans aren't commonly legal outside the US.
- Thorrez 2y agoSo, like China, where the state takes over whatever company it feels like?
- wslh 2y agoIt seems the narratives against China (or Russia) are starting to dilute. Beyond left and right, it's really about realpolitik, power and its desires. When you're at the top and not fighting for survival, you have the luxury to construct whatever narrative suits your position.
- closewith 2y agoYes, where appropriate.
- gessha 2y agoI would understand if you’re suggesting this for resource extraction companies (even if I don’t agree with the idea) but how does it work for companies with a lot of intellectual property and know how? If the people want to leave, how are you going to stop them? Authoritarianism? Bring back the worst from the last century and run it back?
- closewith 2y agoThe people don't want to leave. Even if the company moves, most of the people won't. This is a paper exercise that can be resolved once and for all with paper regulations.
- KronisLV 2y agoIt probably needs a long hard look at the consequences of such decisions in the long term. On one hand, it’s authoritarian, on the other hand not doing that might lead to fairly critical businesses becoming unaligned with the interests of the country, or leaving outright. > What troubles him more is geopolitics. The pressure on asml began to build in 2019, when the Dutch government, at America’s urging, barred the company from exporting its advanced euv machines to China. On the other hand, this position is understandable and it makes me wonder why the Dutch would do this and keep such limitations in place - especially after seeing how clearly hateful the current US administration is towards the EU. The EU should look towards ensuring its own prosperity and that includes the interests and the future of the companies within it. That's a common sense take in my eyes.
- jimbohn 2y agoI am not sure I agree with your take, but one of our era's big questions is whether the economy and/or big enough businesses/industries should be above politics (and the law?). I see the USA and China as extremes in this regard. We shall see.
- casenmgreen 2y agoHistorically, State-run companies perform badly, for themselves and also for the economy and market as a whole. It seems this is because of the implicit State guarantee, and political entanglement and intervention.
- closewith 2y agoThat's an assertion, not fact. Certainly, privatisation of state companies across the EU has been a disaster and no efficiency has been gained, so I wonder where the historical record you're reading is?
- bgnn 2y agoWorst is the privatized abd heavily subsidized public transport companies.
- ur-whale 2y agohttps://archive.is/n3VNc https://archive.is/n3VNc
- DiogenesKynikos 2y agoGiven how openly hostile the United States is to the European Union (and will continue to be for at least the next 4 years), it would be extremely foolish for the EU to continue to go along with the US' chip war against China. What does the EU stand to gain from trying to kneecap China's technological development? The US' motivation is clear: the US wants to maintain its hegemonic position. But the EU has no such position to defend. Instead of acting as a mere pawn of the US, the EU should formulate its own foreign policy that maintains relations with both the US and China, and which avoids getting sucked into one or the other side of the US-China rivalry. The ASML CEO's statement on this is right: > Referring to the Dutch government’s willingness to follow America’s lead on export bans, Mr Fouquet says that Europe must “decide for itself what it wants” and “should not be dictated to by anyone else”.
- mschuster91 2y ago> Given how openly hostile the United States is to the European Union (and will continue to be for at least the next 4 years), it would be extremely foolish for the EU to continue to go along with the US' chip war against China. China is just as much a threat to European companies and European interests as it is to American interests. Trump and his foolishness aside, it's high time Europe wakes up and realizes China is already at war with us - in fact, it has been at war with us for well over a decade. China systematically undercuts our industries with slave labor and sharting on their environment (not that I'd care too much about smog in China, that's their business, but I do care when our industry can't compete because we actually want to protect our environment), China deploys organized hacker campaigns against us or outright buys up our companies to extract knowledge and know-how - and we've bent over for way too long. We haven't even ever insisted on reciprocity in market access ffs!
- tock 2y ago> China systematically undercuts our industries with slave labor By this argument isn't America undercutting Europe by taxing companies less and being ok with less worker rights? > China is already at war with us Who is us here? Because you are threatening a takeover of Greenland and giving up Ukraine to Russia. Not to mention tariffing and threatening your closest allies. > and sharting on their environment Per capita co2 emissions USA: 14.21 China: 8.89
- thegreatpeter 2y agoTLDR ASML wants to sell to China but can't. Their share price has fallen due to companies like Intel and Samsung cutting costs and this CEO is looking for other ways of earning his bonus.
- kiicia 2y agoso just late stage capitalism's pure greed imported to eu
- bgnn 2y agoWell, yeah, and US hostility towards Europe on top. Why should ASML obey US foreign policy decisions while US doesn't care about ASML?
- dehrmann 2y agoASML (or the EU) actually has leverage over the US, here. This is a key initiative of the current (and past) US administration, but it depends on ASML, and the US isn't close to an alternative.
- stubish 2y agoThey mention they rely on some US parts, and the US is in a better position to apply that power and win a game of chicken. ASML is a company, so unlikely to make a moral stand and choose destruction over continuing to do limited business.
- LarsKrimi 2y agoSo they are warning that they might have to move if Europe don't help them do what? And move to where?
- kman82 2y agoAmerica, duh
- ajross 2y agoGood luck finding people willing to immigrate to the USA at this point, where the administration is (literally!) disappearing them by revoking visas and arresting them without legal recourse. Non-citizens are one intemperate op-ed away from living the rest of their days in a Louisiana jail without trial. That sounds so ridiculous that you'd think it had to be hyperbole, but it's literally happening now. No, the days of the US being a mecca for global tech workers are over.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago>Good luck finding people willing to immigrate to the USA at this point My German boss just moved to the US. He really loves it there. He said he's also getting better healthcare for his child which has some rare form of autism or something, at which only the US has invested into research and cures at this point. Edit: why the salty replies?
- sorcerer-mar 2y agoWelp that funding is likely gone. Hope they already discovered everything his son needs. Historically yes, the US has been the global leader for more “bespoke” medical needs.
- SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago> My German boss just moved to the US. he's also getting better healthcare for his child This "better healthcare" will be true in the USA, for about 1 or 2% of top earners.
- hnthrowaway0315 2y agoEU probably should start thinking about its own economical and security interests. Eu is not ready to be a true player at the moment, but at least she can think of ways to balance US and China.
- Animats 2y agoThe March 8, 2025 and March 15, 2025 issues focus on how the rest of the world is responding to the repositioning of the US government and increased supply chain disruption. Those two issues are worth reading if supply chains, imports, or exports impact anything you're involved with. The ASML article is hinting that Europe should fab more of its own ICs. Most of ASML's equipment is exported, not used within Europe. It's not that ASML wants to leave Europe. It's that they need more European customers. Other articles in those two issues cover how Europe is starting to respond to American isolationism and Russian aggression. US threats to pull out of NATO are taken seriously, and contingency plans for a post-US NATO are underway. It looks like France will provide the nuclear deterrent. France's nuclear weapons program is not dependent on the US, but the UK's is. Further acquisition of US fighter aircraft is now much less likely. There's a concern that the F-35 is too "cloud enabled" and dependent on US data sources. The Swedish Gripen is looking like a better option. Efforts to replace US satellite dependency are underway, with recent launches on Ariane boosters from French Guiana. Reduction of EU dependence on the US internet is progressing. All the countries with borders facing Russia or Ukraine have upped military spending considerably. There's debate from the countries further from the front line on how much they have to. Decades-old alliances and trade patterns are shifting. Europe has less of a problem with China than the US does. Russia is much closer, has caused trouble for a century, and there's a lot of bad history there. The US has a long history with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, but Europe does not. Nor does Europe have any obligations to Israel, which helps when getting along with the Arab world. Read more non-US sources on what's happening. Huge, slow changes are underway.
- Gud 2y agoA comment regarding ‘American Isolationism’. The USA is threatening to annex its (former) allies. This is not isolationism. Additionally, we do have trade with the Asian countries mentioned. My factory produces heavy machinery, and we’ve installed it on sites in Taiwan. Europe has very good relationships with those countries.
- ofrzeta 2y ago"the Dutch government’s willingness to follow America’s lead on export bans" is obviously the main problem. What kind of lever do the US possess on the dutch?
- sebazzz 2y agoParts of ASML machines are also made in the US. It is more of a globalised supply chain than you might think. And there are patents, etc.
- hollerith 2y agoZeiss in Germany is also an important supplier to ASML. And the leading-edge fabs are dependent on suppliers other than just ASML: some of these suppliers are US companies that sell very-expensive software.
- robocat 2y agoThe EUV "lightbulb" was invented in the US and the patents are owned by the US government. For the Dutch to allow ASML to ignore those patents would create a technology economic war between the US and EU. I guess ASML could try and invent a different way to generate the EUV, but nobody has don't that yet - it is an extremely difficult problem (and took many years to find one solution). If those patents are the crux of US control, then presumably ASML will be researching alternatives (citations?). China has different solutions (in particular China can ignore US patents). From Wikipedia: To address the challenge of EUV lithography, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories were funded in the 1990s to perform basic research into the technical obstacles. The results of this successful effort were disseminated via a public/private partnership Cooperative R&D Agreement (CRADA) with the invention and rights wholly owned by the US government
- deepfriedchokes 2y agoPatents don’t last forever.
- 2y ago