Few corporate deals can boast of being brought together with the help of a French president, or promoted as a vision of Europe’s future by a German chancellor. But the proposed merger of the rail operations of Siemens and Alstom to create a European champion has always been about more than pure business sense.

“If we want to be able to face competition with Chinese giants, we have to gather the European forces,” Bruno Le Maire, French finance minister, told the Financial Times. “The best solution was this merger.”

That is if Brussels agrees. Potentially standing in the way of the formation of this European champion is one of the EU’s purest examples of centralised power: the European Commission’s antitrust enforcement arm, led by Margrethe Vestager.