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^{EU promises to help Bochum} Anti-Nokia backlash grows in Germany

Anti-Nokia anger in Germany for closing a factory is growing. Besides public demonstrations several top level politicians are publicly ditching the firm's phones. They are also joining labor movement initiated a national boycott against Nokia phones.

Nokia said on Tuesday it plans to close the factory in Bochum in the Ruhr industrial heartland and shift production to Romania where labour costs are lower. The closure will result in 2,300 job losses.

Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, from the left wing party in Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing coalition, attacked what he called Nokia's "caravan capitalism."

Kurt Beck, head of the Social Democrats (SPD) party, has banned Nokias from his home, while Merkel has said consumers had a right to favour appliances "made in Germany."

Horst Seehofer, consumer protection minister and a member of Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has hinted that he might ban Nokia phones in his ministry.

And Peter Struck, head of the SPD in parliament, said on Friday that he has returned his Nokia N-95. AFP and other new agencies report.

Nokia's announcement, followed reportedly within days by the first notices being served on Nokia factory workers, sparked bitter resentment in Germany with the DGB trade union federation calling Thursday for a boycott.

A survey released on Friday by the Cologne-based market research institute Psychonomics signalled that Nokia's image here suffered a blow since the plant closure was announced.

Consumers suddenly gave the brand lower quality ratings after previously comparing it favourably to competitors like Motorola and Ericsson.

Germans will have hard time in finding a mobile phone made in Germany, however.

Last year US manufacturer Motorola said it was dismantling its factory in Flensburg in northern Germany, and German industrial giant Siemens sold its mobile unit to BenQ of Taiwan in 2005 and a year later, BenQ Mobile filed for bankruptcy, condemning its two German factories.

Germans have been asking if the European Union has proved Romania structural funding to entice Nokia.

The Commission has denied subsidising Romania's new Nokia plant, and pointed out that both Germany and Romania receive EU funding.

"It is true that we support infrastructure in economically less privileged regions, also in Germany," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in an interview with the Wirschaftswoche magazine to appear on Monday.

Barroso said he could understand that Germans were shocked by Nokia's move and suggested Brussels could help those laid off in Bochum.

"It is precisely because we know how difficult transformation is that we mobilize our social and globalization funds so that member states do not have to absorb these changes on their own."

The German government and the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, where Bochum lies, have provided Nokia with some 80 million euros various subsidies.

EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, a German, told Welt am Sonntag newspaper the case should prompt a rethink of subsidies.

"There is no point in the state paying subsidies to attract companies," he said.

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