German MP: Nokia relocation is a rational decision

The rapporteur for Romania of the Christian group in the German Bundestag, Gunther Krichbaum, has told HotNews.ro that Nokia’s decision to relocate from Bochum to Romania was a rational one, even if the German state offered various subsidies to the private company. He added that basically Nokia’s decision was the a normal reaction of competition.

Krichbaum considers that Nokia’s case should be viewed from a different perspective: Nokia received money from the German state to assure jobs for German citizens, for a limited period. As the contracted limited expired, Nokia was unrestrained to move its production facilities.

However, he admits that this is also a moral issue as Nokia has a social responsibility for its employees. He said that the reaction of the German population and politicians can be seen as reasonable one but they exaggerated, qualifying Romanian workers as low-skilled.

He advises Romanians to learn an important lesson, namely that Nokia can at any moment relocate its business somewhere else just as it did now. Thus, each country must set the rules of the game clearly and understand that the competition is hard.

[later edit] Notice:

„This article was published on the www.hotnews.ro website without a personal discussion or written interview between HotNews representatives and Mr. Krichbaum, finalized and authorized on this issue. There has been an initiation of such a procedure on HotNews part which for technical reason could not be brought to an end. HotNews regrets this incident.

Mr. Krichbaum considers it is not acceptable that Nokia close a profitable factory and several days later announce a record profit of 8 billion euro.

„For me, the Nokia case shows that the practice of supsidizing within the European Union must be analyzed deeply to prevent abuse on the allocation and use of subsidies.

As a conclusion I would like to underline that we do not deal with a bilateral problem between Germany and Romania but only with a problem of the Nokia company.”