This rarely happens in the UK. The employers' organisation London First, which brings together many of the UK's major companies, has written to ask the Treasury and the Department for Transport to take action in favour of the Eurostar rail company.
In their letter, they urge "swift action to safeguard the future of the rail operator". They hope that the British government will make a gesture by granting loans or lowering interest rates to the operator.
It is true that Eurostar finds itself in an extremely delicate position. The pandemic and the very harsh isolation measures taken by Boris Johnson's government to contain covid have decimated traffic. By 2020, Eurostar will have carried two million passengers, compared with 11.1 million the previous year. Its billion-euro turnover has plummeted, and was divided by 20 last year.
Too British or too French?
Before the crisis, the operator was running up to 15 round trips on weekdays between Paris and London, but now only offers one round trip a day. The same applies to the Brussels-London route, where the number of trains has fallen from nine to one daily return. According to the operator, the load factor is just over 20%.
Speaking to AFP, Jacques Damas, Eurostar's Managing Director, confided that " disaster is possible "and raised the possibility of be in suspension of payments somewhere in the second quarter, more likely in the second half of the second quarter" . He added: "But if the crisis were to become even more severe, it could happen even sooner.
The cross-Channel operator is actually handicapped by its status. "Too British" with its head office in London to benefit from state aid for transport in the eyes of the French government. Too "French" for the British government, if its shareholding is anything to go by. It is true that the SNCF owns 55% of the capital. The rest of the shareholders are the Patina Rail consortium - made up of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (30%) and a British fund (10%) - with 40%, and the SNCB (Belgium) with 5%.
Eurostar is asking for access to the same guaranteed loans as airlines. It would also like a temporary reduction in the tolls paid to run its trains.
On the French side, SNCF - which is also under financial pressure - is a major player. sees a solution to the problem in a possible merger of the company with Thalys. This proposal was launched in 2019. An international European giant would enable the business to be consolidated and savings to be made. At the same time, it would gain influence over governments.
