Rebirth of England.

Chapter 902 It’s Too Difficult

In terms of acquisitions, the above three items are the main ones.

"In addition to these, I need to obtain autonomy for the High-Speed ​​Rail Line 2 project. I don't want the government to dictate to me on aspects such as the selection of construction parties and financing, outside of normal supervision. I need you to fully cooperate with my decision-making on this project. If you can meet these requirements, then I can ensure that this project can be completed with quality and quantity, and it may even be completed and opened to traffic ahead of schedule."

To be honest, Barron really doesn't want to say much about the efficiency of the British government in leading this project. It is simply the most direct manifestation of the decline of Britain...

Well, since he took on this project, he naturally didn't want the kind of "incompetent and full of nonsense" thing to happen in the future.

Before Barron was reborn in his previous life, Europe's so-called "high-speed rail plan" had almost become a joke, and Britain's High-Speed ​​Rail Line 2 was one of the biggest jokes...

Since before the new century, the European Union has had plans to build a high-speed rail network among its countries and connect them with each other, and has also set aside special funds for high-speed rail construction.

And before the rise of China's high-speed rail, there were only four companies in the world that had the technology to build high-speed rail, namely Germany's Siemens, France's Alstom, Canada's Bombardier and Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries.

Two of them are from Europe - to be exact, three, because in addition to Germany's Siemens and France's Alstom, Canada's Bombardier's railway department is mainly located in Germany and mainly comes from acquired German companies.

As a result, on the one hand, the railway track specifications, dispatching systems... and even voltages of EU countries are different. It is not easy to connect them and maintain unified dispatching. In addition, each country also has its own little thoughts in terms of interests, which has caused the cross-border high-speed rail connection within the EU to fail.

In addition,...how should I put it, sometimes the biggest obstacle to Europe's development is the European Union.

Well, this is not nonsense. In the original time and space, facing the merger of China Railway and CRRC to become the world's largest rail transit group, Germany's Siemens and France's Alstom were preparing to merge their railway businesses to form a European railway consortium. As a result, this plan, which had already been reached, was rejected by the EU antitrust...

This has caused Europe's rail transit groups to fall behind China's CRRC Corporation Limited in terms of economies of scale and research and development, and ultimately they can only rely on the EU's trade barriers to maintain their market share in Europe.

But in the global market, the former "Big Four" in the high-speed rail field are no longer able to compete with CRRC Corporation.

The reason why Barron put forward these conditions is that he needs to gain control of the UK High Speed ​​Rail Line 2 and needs support from the British government. As for the French side, he will also persuade the other party to provide support through Alstom.

In addition to needing them to fight for interests with the EU, the government also needs support when dealing with domestic environmental protection, animal protection and other organizations.

In fact, environmental protection and animal protection in Europe and the United States is fundamentally a business.

The purpose of these organizations is not all to protect the earth, but to gain a voice in this field and thereby gain benefits.

With such demands rampant, it can be said that many of Europe’s construction projects have been hindered.

For example, when Tesla was building a super factory in Germany, it was driven to despair by environmentalists and animal rights advocates.

In the original time and space, when Tesla built a factory in Germany, it was boycotted by local environmentalists and animal protectionists... because they believed that Tesla's factory would pose a threat to local water sources and wildlife, including an endangered bat that was hibernating.

In addition, there is a 92-hectare forest near the site of the Tesla factory, and they prevented Tesla from cutting down the trees...

Coincidentally, also in Germany, when they were building the German high-speed rail S21 project, this 200-kilometer high-speed rail was planned since 1994, but it was not built until Barron was reborn, that is, thirty years later... Well, you can find that when Europe and the United States are carrying out these constructions, the plots of being obstructed by environmental protection and animal protection are similar. First, when the S2010 project just started in 21 - well, you read it right, it was planned in 1994, approved in 2007, and started in 2010, and then more than ten years later it has not been completed. This is the European speed - it is also because some trees need to be cut down, and then environmental organizations began to organize people to demonstrate, and had a "beautiful scenery" with the police...

The protest lasted for several months, and naturally the S21 project had to come to a standstill.

Then in 2012, two endangered animals were found along the project route - this time they were lizards, so environmental and animal protection organizations got excited again and continued the previous process of protesting, confronting and then "beautiful scenery", forcing the project to stop again...

Well, this time the work was stopped for 15 months.

In the end, the German Railway Company had to spend 1500 million euros to hire experts to catch the lizards one by one and relocate them to stop the conflict.

Therefore, Barron can foresee that this kind of scenario will definitely happen during the construction of the UK High Speed ​​Rail Line 2 project.

At the very least, he needs to leave some money to "dissuade" environmentalists and animal rights activists.

Because even if his influence in the UK is enough to deal with these environmental protection and animal protection organizations, this kind of protest-confrontation-compromise plot will have to happen again. After all, it is impossible to just give money and those environmental protection and animal protection organizations will stop making trouble...

The premise for them to "make trouble" is their sense of presence in such incidents. To put it bluntly, they will not let go of any opportunity to "make trouble" and must first stand firmly on the moral high ground. Therefore, they will still make trouble, but at least the time to resolve it will be much shorter, and it will not last for several months.

If the government promotes this kind of company, it naturally cannot be as "flexible" as Barron in dealing with environmentalists and animal rights activists, which naturally lengthens the timeline of the entire plot.

At this point, you can understand why Chinese environmentalists and animal protectors did not miss any opportunity to "appear on camera". In addition to the funding from various foundations, they also envied their overseas "peers" who were jumping up and down and eating well...

"I can give you my greatest support, Your Highness, but some things should not be made too ugly..."

After understanding Barron's request, Cameron actually felt relieved. Although it did require considerable support from him, it was at least within his acceptable range.

His only worry is that those troublesome environmentalists and animal rights activists will not use this as an excuse to attack him in the next election.

"Also, are there no problems with funding?"

Although Cameron knew that among all private enterprises in Britain, only the one in front of him had the ability to take on a project of the scale of High-Speed ​​Rail Line 2 alone, he was still unsure about the funding.

"No problem, I have my plans..."

Barron said with full wisdom:

"Of course, I know that we can apply for relevant high-speed rail construction funds from the European Union, and we cannot miss the benefits in this regard."

"Of course, we will do our best to get it from the EU."

Cameron also supports this. After all, Britain pays so much money to the EU every year, and it must try its best to get some of it back in this matter.