[InTheArena]

Depends, do you travel through any of the airports in Europe, use many of the train services in Europe, get power from spain, portugal or (non-nuclear) France? Fly on a Airbus, or a Boeing with RR engines?

There are legit reasons to be skeptical of privatization, but yes. It works well when it works.

Dogmatic responses (free market == everything, only government and unions can provide service) are not helpful.

[paganel]

Airbus is by all intents and purposes a (multi-)State controlled company with privatized profits. You don’t get to have hefty defense contracts in countries like Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia if you’re de facto a private company, which they aren’t.

[constantcrying]

>You don’t get to have hefty defense contracts in countries like Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia if you’re de facto a private company, which they aren’t.

This is false. Saudi Arabi buys equipment from private companies. Most US Defense contractors are private companies, of course countries all around the world buy from private companies.

The defense contracts of Airbus have nothing to do with them being partially state owned.