This is sick... I know that the EU's have put a lot of government subsidies into the French Airbus and they need to sell a bunch of their new A380 Jumbos but this is sick.
Hat tip to Mover Mike -- a new arrival on the blog 'scene':
bq. Tsunami-hit Thais told: Buy six planes or face EU tariffs
bq. This is not a good time to get tough with Thailand. The article Mike links to is in The Scotsman - it goes on to say: bq. While aid workers from across Europe are helping to rebuild Thai livelihoods, trade officials in Brussels are concluding a jets-for-prawns deal, which they had hoped to announce next month. bq. As the world�s largest producer of prawns, Thailand has become so efficient that its wares are half the price of those caught by Norway, the main producer of prawns for the EU. bq. To ensure the Thais cannot compete, EU officials five years ago removed its shrimp industry from the EU�s generalised system of preferential tariffs - designed to share Western wealth with developing countries by trade. bq. The EU has instead slapped a tariff of 12 per cent on its fish - three times that imposed on prawns from Malaysia, its neighbour. And whatever happened to the concept of Free Trade?TSUNAMI-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs against its fishing industry.
"whatever happened to the concept of Free Trade?"
When has the EU ever been interested in free trade? The EU's only interest is in whatever gives the best advantage to it's members. The timing for this announcement sucks, but the EU isn't doing anything out of the ordinary here.