BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission is open to all proposals that protect European businesses and jobs, a spokesman said on Friday regarding a French idea to shield European companies from predators through state investment.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy this week floated the idea of European sovereign funds buying stakes in companies suffering from the financial crisis and threatened by foreign takeover.
Asked whether the Commission supported such plans, a spokesman for the European Union executive said:
"The EU Commission is open to any proposal which is designed to protect European citizens and businesses, that would involve protecting jobs," he said.
"So in this moment of crisis we are particularly attentive to such proposals," he said. He declined to elaborate, saying details of the French proposal were not yet known to the EU executive.
(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski, editing by Dale Hudson)
