Europe
In Western Europe there was a massive nationalization throughout the 20th century, especially after World War II to ensure Government control over natural monopolies and to some extent industry. Typical sectors included telecommunications, power, petroleum, railways, airports, airlines, public transport, health care, postal services and sometimes banks. Many large industrial corporations were also nationalized or created as Government corporations, including among many British Steel, Statoil and Irish Sugar. Starting in the late 1970s and accelerating through the 1980s and 1990s many of these corporations were privatized, though many still remain wholly or partially owned by the respective governments.
A state-run enterprise needs to be distinguished from an ordinary limited liability corporation owned by the state. For example, in Finland, state-run enterprises (liikelaitos) are governed by a separate act. Even though responsible for their own finances, they cannot be declared bankrupt; the state answers for the liabilities. Stocks of the corporation are not sold and loans have to be government-approved, as they are government liabilities. In contrast, the state also owns controlling interest in ordinary limited liability corporations. A state-run enterprise is technically not always a corporation, it might also be a separate state entity, or simply a governmental agency acting as an enterprise, perhaps having its own budget. Conversely, the state can directly fund unprofitable business, such as railway services to remote areas, regardless of whether the operator is a private corporation.
Read more about this topic: Government-owned Corporation
Famous quotes containing the word europe:
“Well then! Wagner was a revolutionary—he fled the Germans.... As an artist one has no home in Europe outside Paris: the délicatesse in all five artistic senses that is presupposed by Wagner’s art, the fingers for nuances, the psychological morbidity are found only in Paris. Nowhere else is this passion in questions of form to be found, this seriousness in mise en scène—which is Parisian seriousness par excellence.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I believe that the fundamental proposition is that we must recognize that the hostilities in Europe, in Africa, and in Asia are all parts of a single world conflict. We must, consequently, recognize that our interests are menaced both in Europe and in the Far East.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Is not our role to stand for the one thing which means our own salvation here but with which it will also be possible to save the world, and with which Europe will be able to save itself, namely the preservation of the white man and his state?”
—Hendrik Verwoerd (1901–1966)