The answer to these corporate threats is and should always be nationalisation. Not the threat of nationalisation, just immediate aquisition by the state.
On one hand, it’s authoritarian, on the other hand not doing that might lead to fairly critical businesses becoming unaligned with the interests of the country, or leaving outright.
> What troubles him more is geopolitics. The pressure on asml began to build in 2019, when the Dutch government, at America’s urging, barred the company from exporting its advanced euv machines to China.
On the other hand, this position is understandable and it makes me wonder why the Dutch would do this and keep such limitations in place - especially after seeing how clearly hateful the current US administration is towards the EU.
The EU should look towards ensuring its own prosperity and that includes the interests and the future of the companies within it.
That's a common sense take in my eyes.
This is a paper exercise that can be resolved once and for all with paper regulations.
It seems this is because of the implicit State guarantee, and political entanglement and intervention.
Certainly, privatisation of state companies across the EU has been a disaster and no efficiency has been gained, so I wonder where the historical record you're reading is?
(Also, while a poison pill threat can be a good management decision, taking the poison pill is a seriously bad management decision. So a government can just bet on that.)