Christoph Mohn, the heir to the Bertelsmann media empire, has called for Europe to create an Airbus of the internet, to compete with US giants such as Google and Ebay.
Mr Mohn, chief executive of Lycos Europe, said his online community and search company would introduce some products to the US market in the next 12 months but European internet companies were operating at a disadvantage to their US rivals.
“So far, we have not built up a sizeable internet company in Europe,” he said. “It’s not good for the European Union. Nano-technology, biotechnology and the internet are the growth industries but in most of these the position is not good for Europe.” Airbus has recently confirmed that deliveries of its new A380 super-jumbo passenger jet, the world’s biggest airliner, will be delayed.
Mr Mohn endorsed the controversial Franco-German plan to build a state-funded European search engine called Quaero, saying: “It’s a little bit like Airbus Industries. I don’t think it requires consolidation [of Eur-ope's internet industry] but it needs co-ordination.”
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