Oh nice, tell me what legal basis you will use to stop a takeover bid. Have a look at NXP and a whole raft of other absolutely critical companies whose shares eventually wound up in the hands of countries hostile to Europe.

We have a whole department in the EU that would like nothing better than to be able to stop these kind of things from happening but time and again the business world finds a way around it. That's one of the main issues with the EU: we play by the rules even if the rest of the world does not. But that's a very expensive principle to let go and I for one am happy that so far they have not, even if you think it is 'spineless' it actually is the opposite.