Political relations between UK-EU

metalblue said:
Yes they are. What has that got to do with bailing out Eurostar?
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highspeed1.co.uk

About Life At HS1 LT.S

HS1 Ltd has the 30-year concession to own, operate and maintain High Speed 1 (HS1), the UK’s only high-speed railway, as well as the stations along the route: St Pancras International, Stratford International, Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International.
highspeed1.co.uk highspeed1.co.uk
Cost 6 billion quid
 
metalblue said:
It’s strategic? How on earth did we ever manage before 1994? Oh wait there are planes, hovercraft and ferries to get us and freight to Europe. No body is cutting anything off from anyone.

So given there are perfectly viable alternatives it’s isn’t strategic to the UK - But it’s all irrelevant if it goes bust someone will buy it and it won’t cease operations during that time. And if it’s that vital to the UK economy we can always buy it should that happen.

Still no one has explained to me exactly why the UK tax payer should bail out something owned by 55% the French tax payer and 45% by private investors and 0% by the UK tax payer. Why don’t the existing shareholders provide funding?
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Of course it's strategic. It's one of our main links to the continent. Being strategic doesn't mean it's the only provider of a service but it's a key part of the mix. As I said earlier it's becoming less strategic because of our government's apparent desire to ludicrously rebalance our economy away from Europe.
Anyway, I'm not aware that there the various government schemes to help business get through the pandemic are dependent on who the shareholders of the businesses are. I strongly suspect that the French and Belgian governments will contribute the lion's share of support but as this company also provides a key service for use by UK nationals, it makes sense that we do our bit to keep it afloat. It's not that it's a badly managed company; it's a victim of the pandemic like numerous others that are also foreign owned but provide vital services to the UK economy that are also eligible for help under the governments various relief packages.
 
west didsblue said:
Eurostar is HS1's biggest customer.
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And HS1 is Korean-owned and the tunnel itself is owned by a European company no longer quoted on the London stock exchange. The only UK government involvement is that Network Rail has a maintenance contract.
 
west didsblue said:
Of course it's strategic. It's one of our main links to the continent. Being strategic doesn't mean it's the only provider of a service but it's a key part of the mix. As I said earlier it's becoming less strategic because of our government's apparent desire to ludicrously rebalance our economy away from Europe.
Anyway, I'm not aware that there the various government schemes to help business get through the pandemic are dependent on who the shareholders of the businesses are. I strongly suspect that the French and Belgian governments will contribute the lion's share of support but as this company also provides a key service for use by UK nationals, it makes sense that we do our bit to keep it afloat. It's not that it's a badly managed company; it's a victim of the pandemic like numerous others that are also foreign owned but provide vital services to the UK economy that are also eligible for help under the governments various relief packages.
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The UK government has provided the same access for support to Eurostar as it has any other businesses and has also offered to extend terms on the money owing by Eurostar to it. Granted it’s not the same as British flag carrying airlines etc and the such so doesn’t fall under the same “protection” that some of them were afforded, but nor could we reasonably expect it to be.

I agree it’s not badly run which makes it all the more curious that the French won’t openly support it and why they are playing political brinkmanship with it. It’s also undoubtedly why the UK government believe someone will buy it in the worst case scenario, although I imagine they would rather that didn’t happen as it is also fraught with uncertainty. And there is undoubtedly a bit of brinkmanship on the UK side as well.

To that end I also agree we can help and I suspect that would likely be soft support for example extending terms, deferring pay roll taxes, and reducing the line fees (which are 300% more expensive on UK lines compared to France lines). But the UK government would unlikely do anything until the French government provide their plans - which I don’t think is unreasonable.

If Eurostar’s commercial banks are pulling back from providing more support it would suggest some structural issues may exist that make it inequitable to lend to. The UK government isn’t a commercial bank and is an exceptional lender of last resort for strategically important businesses/industries that can’t source funding elsewhere - so for any other hard support from the UK tax payer I would expect the UK government to take a stake back in the company as a condition of that (and I wouldn’t be opposed to that - although to keep @blueparrot happy in his narrow beliefs of my little englander nature I’d be insisting it was renamed to BritStar or RoastBeefStar)
 
metalblue said:
The UK government has provided the same access for support to Eurostar as it has any other businesses and has also offered to extend terms on the money owing by Eurostar to it. Granted it’s not the same as British flag carrying airlines etc and the such so doesn’t fall under the same “protection” that some of them were afforded, but nor could we reasonably expect it to be.

I agree it’s not badly run which makes it all the more curious that the French won’t openly support it and why they are playing political brinkmanship with it. It’s also undoubtedly why the UK government believe someone will buy it in the worst case scenario, although I imagine they would rather that didn’t happen as it is also fraught with uncertainty. And there is undoubtedly a bit of brinkmanship on the UK side as well.

To that end I also agree we can help and I suspect that would likely be soft support for example extending terms, deferring pay roll taxes, and reducing the line fees (which are 300% more expensive on UK lines compared to France lines). But the UK government would unlikely do anything until the French government provide their plans - which I don’t think is unreasonable.

If Eurostar’s commercial banks are pulling back from providing more support it would suggest some structural issues may exist that make it inequitable to lend to. The UK government isn’t a commercial bank and is an exceptional lender of last resort for strategically important businesses/industries that can’t source funding elsewhere - so for any other hard support from the UK tax payer I would expect the UK government to take a stake back in the company as a condition of that (and I wouldn’t be opposed to that - although to keep @blueparrot happy in his narrow beliefs of my little englander nature I’d be insisting it was renamed to BritStar or RoastBeefStar)
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I suspect there is more government support than is admitted to, because it plays well to the Brexit base to appear antagonistic to a service with “Euro” in its name that provides transport to and from the EU.
 
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