Thursday, July 31, 2008

In The National Interest

Continuing on a nationalism related theme, I was reading this morning about the purchase by Gas Natural of a 45% stake in the electricity company Unión Fenosa. The shares have been bought from the construction company ACS, presided by a man better known to many as being a former president of Real Madrid; Florentino Perez. ACS and Perez have done very nicely out of the deal, but that is not my main point in writing about the operation. Casting my mind back to a similar situation a few years ago, when Gas Natural tried to buy out Endesa, I remembered the huge political storm that bid provoked. The rabid right came out in force against allowing the Catalans of Gas Natural to control Endesa, in a memorable lapse Esperanza Aguirre accused the government of permitting the sale of the company to “foreigners”.

Naturally expecting a similar reaction this time around, I went off in search on the internet to see if the patriotic campaign in defence of Fenosa was already beginning. Starting at El Mundo’s web page I could only find a straightforward account of the operation on the economics pages. To my distress, I got the same result over at Libertad Digital. What could be happening to those for whom the only things that matter are “España y Libertad”? Wait a minute, I’m getting a message on my earpiece……What’s that you say? …..Florentino Perez is a shareholder of Libertad Digital….and you think that might have something to do with their lack of reaction?....It’s a sorry state of affairs indeed when the nation can be sold so cheaply.


9 comments:

Tom said...

Graeme, you're an unreformed cynic. When did business interests ever have anything to do with news reporting or nationalist fervour for that matter?

Graeme said...

I plead guilty, but society's to blame.

Tom said...

Personally, I like to blame reality.

Colin Davies said...

I can think of better reasons why you should feel ashamed . . . . :-)

Colin Davies said...

Which probably should have been posted somewhere else. But it's after 6.

Graeme said...

As cryptic comments go Colin, that is not at all bad.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Colin Davies said...

I would try explaining but it's before 12.

Graeme said...

I suppose you could argue that it always is. Before 12 that is.