Brussels, 19/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has authorised the French company Alstom to acquire Fiat Ferroviaria (turnover of around 740 billion lira), a subsidiary of the Italian group Fiat, specialised in rail transport. The takeover leads to competitive overlaps for mainline, regional and local trains as well as for certain components. The operation, however, does not raise competition concerns and so the Commission did not have to decide whether the market at stake has bdcome European - as claimed by the merging parties - or national. The only product market where Alstom's and Fiat Ferroviaria's interest will theoretically lead to high market shares is mainline trains, especially in the United Kingdom and Spain. On both these markets, however, the parties had won the relevant contracts jointly in a consortium. There is therefore, strictly speaking, no real addition of market shares. Within the EU as a whole, Alstom will clearly become number one. Nonetheless, the market share held by Fiat Ferroviaria has been on the decline since 1995 given the emergence of certain competitors also able to offer tilting train technology that only the Fiat subsidiary initially offered. Concerning the four other markets for products on which the activities of the parties involved overlap, either the addition of market shares is minimal or there are other major rivals.