To be honest I’ve actually grown more sympathetic to the Dutch perspective over time. If they went for the legal approach of having shareholding entities sue Nexperia it would’ve taken too long and the former Nexperia CEO would’ve been able to transfer wafer manufacturing to his other company. Instead they decided to go for the fast approach, which also didn’t work because China had more leverage than anticipated to retaliate against this. On top of this, they did so on legally dubious grounds, such as invoking an antiquated law that has not seen use once until now.
Karremans really deserves a lot of blame for this mess if the reports are true that he was the main orchestrator of this whole debacle. Not only did he throw the auto industry in for a tailspin but he also seemingly didn’t warn other EU countries of his actions. There haven’t been any reports of any diplomatic downgrades as a result of the Dutch government’s actions with other countries with the EU, particularly Germany, but I can’t imagine diplomats are pleased behind the scenes.
Ironically this is one of the times that if a European government had announced its intentions beforehand, it would’ve softened the damage by giving time to allow automakers to find alternatives. Usually by telegraphing their actions they end up giving adversaries time to retaliate and soften the blow.
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> US puts on pressure
> Dutch seize control of the company
> US makes deal
> Dutch relinquish control of the company
Not beating the vassal allegations here.
To be honest I’ve actually grown more sympathetic to the Dutch perspective over time. If they went for the legal approach of having shareholding entities sue Nexperia it would’ve taken too long and the former Nexperia CEO would’ve been able to transfer wafer manufacturing to his other company. Instead they decided to go for the fast approach, which also didn’t work because China had more leverage than anticipated to retaliate against this. On top of this, they did so on legally dubious grounds, such as invoking an antiquated law that has not seen use once until now.
Karremans really deserves a lot of blame for this mess if the reports are true that he was the main orchestrator of this whole debacle. Not only did he throw the auto industry in for a tailspin but he also seemingly didn’t warn other EU countries of his actions. There haven’t been any reports of any diplomatic downgrades as a result of the Dutch government’s actions with other countries with the EU, particularly Germany, but I can’t imagine diplomats are pleased behind the scenes.
Ironically this is one of the times that if a European government had announced its intentions beforehand, it would’ve softened the damage by giving time to allow automakers to find alternatives. Usually by telegraphing their actions they end up giving adversaries time to retaliate and soften the blow.