Boeing planes Free to be sold on to Europe

EU Commission Approves Boeing Merger

The EU Competition Commissioner, Karel Van Miert, announced that the Commission had agreed that last-minute concessions offered by Boeing "went in the right direction". The 20-member commission did not take a vote on the issue, but sources said that a French commissioner, Edith Cresson, opposed approving the deal.

Earlier, the French Minister for European Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, had said that Boeing's last-minute concessions were "not sufficient".

Karel van Miert: Boeing made "important concessions"

The $15 billion merger will create the world's largest manufacturer of airplanes. 84% of the world's aircraft have been manufactured by Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, although their current share of civil aircraft sales is under 50%.

The only other major plane maker left is the European Airbus consortium, and there were fears the merger might undermine its position on the market.

The European Commission appeared determined to block the merger if it did not get concessions from Boeing. On Tuesday night Boeing bowed to pressure from Europe and gave in to several demands, including scrapping deals it had with three large American airlines to buy exclusively from Boeing for the next twenty years.

Bill Clinton intervened to prevent trade war

The American anti-trust authorities cleared the deal earlier this month. But the EU could have effectively blocked the merger between Boeing and McDonnell Douglas by refusing to recognise the merged company, fining it or putting tariffs on the sale of its planes in Europe.

Such action, however, could have resulted in a transatlantic trade war between the European Union and the United States of America. The US President, Bill Clinton, intervened and tried to arrange a compromise, to prevent such a damaging outcome.

Europe's agreement with Boeing has lifted the threat of economic warfare.