Alcatel-Lucent held an exceptional European group committee meeting

The European group committee of Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) met today at the company’s headquarters in Paris. Twelve members of the management team attended, along with 27 delegates from nine European countries. This meeting, which is part of the company’s social dialogue, began with a presentation by Patricia Russo, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, on the new challenges of the Group in a market undergoing deep transformation. It continued with a long discussion with the delegates on market evolution, the strategy and technological choices of the Group.

Patricia Russo emphasized that the staff reductions are the direct result of redundancies linked to the merger announced on December 1st, 2006, and of Nortel’s UMTS activities acquisition. It is also linked to the adaptation of our business model related to our customers’ rapidly evolving needs and to the adjustment of some activities to the market perspectives.

Those reasons, and especially the redefinition of the product portfolio, explains why a part of the plan concerns job reductions in R&D. While our presence in emerging countries is essential to adapt products to the specificities of those growing markets, the company insisted on the fact that those countries would experience the impact of synergies as well.

Patricia Russo also reaffirmed the company’s strong commitment to R&D in Western Europe and North America in particular. The missions of the company’s major European R&D competence centers were also confirmed:

- Access in Belgium and Spain

- Optics in Italy, Germany and France

- Submarine networks in France

- IP in Belgium

- 2G mobile in France and Germany

- 3G mobile in France, following Nortel’s UMTS activities acquisition, and in Germany

- WiMAX in France and Germany

- Convergence in France, Belgium, Germany and Spain

- Enterprise in France

- Research & Innovation in France, Germany and Belgium.


Alcatel-Lucent’s active involvement in the working group on the future of telecom in Europe put in place by the French government is also dedicated to this commitment.

A second meeting of the European group committee is scheduled on March 23, 2007, to discuss subjects, which weren’t covered during today’s meeting due to a lack of time, and to go further into others.