I have been constantly unsettled trying to understand the rationale behind the idea of economic nationalism and protectionism. What is the logic that governments follow to disregard the positive effects from merger and acquisitions just because the bids come from a foreign firms. It does not make sense to me that governments that supposedly have a liberal stand point of view start to intervene and interfere in this type of operations. I can not understand how these governments ignore benefits like the possible increased negotiating power with suppliers and the synergies that might be created in purchasing, manufacturing and marketing.
Focusing on the Spanish example, what is the meaning of the release made by Fernando Moraleda the communication government official when he says; “Spanish government respects the market rules, but it has the conviction that in an strategic sector like the energy one it is in the best interest of Spain to have a company that is ruled by a national firm.”
At this point I ask myself what are those “national interests” that the communication official talks about? Does not a merger suppose to create wealth and value?
After a period of clear rejection the Spanish government has been forced to step back and listen to Neelie Kroes, the EU's Competition Commissioner who said that “Spain has broken EU competition law in effect by blocking the merger.” Therefore, the Spanish government “has accepted” the takeover by imposing 19 restrictions, which range from the “divesture of the firm operations on the Balearic and Canary Islands, and in northern Africa, to the sale of the only nuclear-power plant wholly owned by Endesa.”
So now my question is how these impositions help Spanish interests? From my point of view, this protectionism only adds costs to the opeation and dificultate the creation of value. On the other hand, what about the shareholders? Is not the company suppose to be ruled by the shareholders? Do they have any power to contradict the government decisions? Where is their choice reflected?
An excerpt from an article in the economist ilustrates an idea that many people share on what is really influence from cross-border mergers and acquisitions; “What is affected, however, is the ability of governments and of individual politicians to use patronage at favoured firms to help their friends, to get favours in return, to support special interests such as trade unions, and, in broad political terms, to paint themselves as patriots. Consumers aren't helped, living standards don't rise, the nation as a whole is not better off. But the political and corporate elite may well be.”*
From this confusion I have, I ask myself what is the dominance a government should exert over its corporate scene? And what are the real implications behind the interventionism that the governments impose on these operations?

* http://economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_VVSVNGN

There have been a lot of political fights behind the scene in the Endesa acquisition case so it cannot be analysed only from an economical point of view.

The first attempt to buy Endesa came from the Spanish gas company Gas Natural which is owned by amongst others Caixa Catalunya (a Spanish savings bank from Catalonian where the Catalonian Socialist government has a lot of power). One of the main share holders of Endesa is Caja Madrid (another savings bank but in this case located in Madrid and controlled by the local government in Madrid which is leaded by the conservative party). Caja Madrid / Endesa opposed the offer made by Gas Natural and many people believe this is the main reason why the socialist government opposed the E-On acquisition.

This political fight has become even clearer today where the former president of Endesa Pizarro is now representing the conservative party as the second candidate after the leader Mariano Rajoy in the upcoming elections (marts 9th 2008)

Las Vegas‘ downtown still has the same low rent gaming that made the town famous generations ago. It’s two miles North of the strip, and it can be as much fun as the mega-resorts to the South. If you’re staying downtown and have a car, the El Cortez has nice rooms on the hotel’s East end, great prices, and good room availability when rooms are hard to find.

The first thing you need, obviously, is a product or service that you can sell. If you already have a brick and mortar store you can offer the same items for sale on a web site. The number of products that you sell is a big factor in the type of hosting package you need. If you have let’s say less than 20 items, you could set the whole thing up on a very small hosting account. Listing hundreds of products is a different story – you will probably need more disk space, more bandwidth, and more features such as databases and a secure connection for accepting payments.