German protectionism at its best: Finish corporation Nokia is a "subsidy locust" and promotes "caravan capitalism" 
for having decided to move its 2,300 employees-factory from Germany to Romania, where workers cost 10 times less. Such are the claims made by German politicians and trade unions.
Even the European Commission promised some help from "anti-globalization" funds for the angry German workers, who are backed by influential trade unions and populist politicians. The European Parliament got into the act as well by launching an investigation into the alleged abuse of EU funds in relocating to Romania. Everyone seems to forget that Nokia is the LAST mobile phone manufacturer to leave Germany, after Motorola and BenQ Siemens did the same over the past two years. And Nokia is not moving to China, like everyone else, but stays in the EU and gives a fair chance of development to Romania, the poorest member of the club after Bulgaria.
Yet principles such as "freedom of goods, labor and services" within the EU are easily forgotten when it comes to German protectionism.
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Feb 3rd, 2008
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Life In The Big Blue State…
Transatlantic Politics looks at “German protectionism against Nokia”:German protectionism at its best: Nokia is a “subsidy locust” and promotes “caravan capitalism” for having decided to move its 2,300 emplyees-factory from the Germany to Romania…
There is also more than a whiff of racism going on of the intra-european variety. Speculating about how Romanian workers might not be as “reliable or punctual” as the Germans is not some random quote but rather is an appeal to european bigotry, code talk that most people in the US probably gloss over because we don’t generally tell that sort of joke. There aren’t enough romanians around the US for those sorts of jokes to spread.
The really funny part is that that area, Transylvania, is considered a somewhat dull, nose-to-the-grindstone place by other regions in Romania. You see, several hundred years ago, some german royalty decided to put down colonies over there in a bid for demographic empire. The german cultural influence remains to this day though most of the germans went to germany (FRG) during the communist years.
Full disclosure: my father’s side of the family is Transylvanian and I was born in the Banat, just south of Transylvania.