AFP - France is the top offender when it comes to industrial espionage, and is even worse than China and Russia, the head of a German company was quoted as saying in a leaked US diplomatic cable made public Tuesday.
"France is the evil empire (in) stealing technology, and Germany knows this," Berry Smutny, the head of German satellite company OHB Technology, was quoted as saying in the diplomatic note obtained by WikiLeaks and released by the Norwegian daily Aftenposten.
Germany, with its decentralised government, was however not willing to do much to counter French industrial espionage activities, he was paraphrased as saying.
"Going on at length of his (disdain) of the French, Smutny said French IPR (intellectual property rights) espionage is so bad that the total damage done to the German economy is greater than that inflicted by China or Russia," read the cable, dated November 20, 2009.
Does the European Union play any role in mediating conflicts related to industrial espionage between two member countries? You would think that because France and Germany are two economically powerful countries within the European Union and the European Union deals in everything from diplomacy to economic policies, the European Union would play a sort of mediating role between the two, but is this the case, or is there another organization specifically made to settle such disputes?
