[Skybird]

No, Jim, Germany already had seen job losses due to a restructuring at Airbus over the past years that was initiated by the French. EADS is currently led by the German half of the former French-German leadership duo, and although German, Enders actually was in clash with the German government, wanting it to step back even more and trying to sell this demand to the French side as well so that EADS would very well be free to dictate in the future to government the conditions of future business operations by EADS, including to make them pay even more, and externalize even more risks to public tax payers. It is to ber assumed that he also wants a lowering of arms control for exports. BAE on the other hand tried to secure for the British a dominant position in any business-related and security policy-related decision making, to reach slight advantage over the French, and bypass the Germans more or less completely by marginalizing them. I assume the German resistance was underestimated when having seen how easily Paris managed to push Berlin into giving way for French demands at Airbus in the past years. Germany has given up several key technology fields in the past, namely independent aircraft manufacturing (the French had Airbus, Britain had BAE), and nuclear technology for a Germ,n market (Siemens, and others). It seems Berlin was not willing to lose even more technological key areas, and jobs as well - every merger of this size costs jobs, and costs money. Also, most if not all mammoth mergers in the past have gone wrong, I think of Daimler especially. Next year is a German election year - having sold German jobs as EADS away and having lost influence at EADS and in security policy making as well, probably was a concern in Berlin as well. Fro what I read and heared today, nobody in Berlin wanted this merger, and all politicians are pretty much relieved that it got prevented. While the London stockmarket hoped for the merger, the German did noit - todays declaration of failure made several tech indices going upwards, so workers at EADS and German shareholders both are united in relief that the merger failed. Don't know what the London indices said about the story today.

The double-leadership at Airbus does not go smooth at all (France, Germany). Imagine how unsmooth it would have become with three major heavyweights rivaling at the top for influence. In the end, I think, this merger would have led to a dictating of costs and prices for which the taxpayers would have had to pay - again.