Mittal, The Indian Raiders

The bid by Mittal for Arcelor has once again awakened the most xenophobic and ignorant sections of the European political tribe. They have been rushing to find ways of stopping this take over, mainly due to the colour of skin of the bidders owners.

The bid has sparked objections from the governments of France, Luxembourg and Spain and from labour unions, who are worried about job losses even though Mittal has assured that no worker would lose job and cited all his operations in various countries had not resulted in retrenchment.

So there can be no real reason to try and stop the bid, other than economic nationalism and Xenophobia.

The Government of Luxembourg, a shareholder of Arcelor, will soon rush through a bill aimed at thwarting Mittal's hostile bid. Luxembourg's finance minister Luc Frieden has said the bill adopted an amended version of a EU takeover directive that will allow a besieged company board to take drastic action to repel a hostile takeover without seeking prior consent from shareholders.

Readers will recall that the Government of Luxembourg is beyond reproach, a fervent believer in a Greater Europe, and backer of the defunct constitution. They are always quick to denounce those Xenophobic Eurosceptics. They only have good intentions, I am sure.