Second term unlikely for EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager

“European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, a former leader of a political party now in opposition in her native Denmark, said on Wednesday that her country’s government did not support naming her for another mandate at the European Union’s executive body,” Reuters reports.

“Vestager, 50, has a high profile in Brussels after attacking tax dodging allegations and monopoly powers among U.S. multinationals including Google and Apple as the EU competition commissioner,” Reuters reports.

Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition
Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition
“‘My native member state doesn’t seem too enthusiastic about giving me another mandate,’ Vestager said at a news conference in Paris. ‘And that would be an understatement.'”

“Vestager is a former leader of the Danish Social Liberal Party, which opposes the country’s ruling conservatives,” Reuters reports. “‘The tradition in my country is that it is the biggest party in government that names the commissioner,’ Vestager told reporters.”

 
Read more in the full article here.

 

MacDailyNews Take: Aw, gee, that’s too bad.

On the bright side, the EU now risks the possibility, however remote it may be given that the pool of prospects consists of politicians, of getting a Commissioner for Competition with a brain.

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8 Comments

  1. LOL. No one will cry if Vestager does not get renewal. The cases she has brought forward (ie. Apple) are going to be tied up for years and years, have already cost the EU a lot and will cost much more in future, and in the end there is no guarantee that Apple will not successfully defend against her attack. My bet is that the amount owing will be considerably reduced.

  2. European Union has to teach the Russians and their pet Americans that the EU is the worlds largest market with 550 million people. China is second with nearly three times with the population and United Shities is third. Russia is smaller market than Spain. The Russian propaganda through these shit sites like MDN must be stopped. We are in the info war! Fuck Putin&Kim&Trump.

  3. My native member state doesn’t seem too enthusiastic about giving me another mandate.”

    Wow. An unelected bureaucrat with massive powers over companies she neither built nor managed is being turned out from her throne. Hopefully, someone in old Europe is waking up to the dangers of unelected rulers.

    1. Well clearly Ed you don’t know how these things work. Did you vote for the US Secretary of State? Why not? Feeding on MDN’s slanted anti-EU articles won’t help.

      On August 31, 2014, Denmark’s Prime Minister Thorning-Schmidt nominated Vestager to be Denmark’s EU competition commissioner – a representative appointed by the elected executive, exactly like a US president nominates (but does not select) ambassadors for the US. The European Parliament approved the nomination on 3 Oct 2014 (much as Congress has the responsibility to approve nominations in the US). Her 5-yer term runs out in October .

      I applaud her work, which has been consistently fair and accurate as determined in proper courts of law. The current probes for anticompetitive practices from Facebook and Google (again), Nike’s special tax arrangements, in addition to past successful cases against Fiat, Gazprom, Apple, McDonald’s, and Startbucks show she’s not coasting out her term. Monopolists and multinational corporate giants that use their power to create special conditions for themselves finally have someone to fear, since obviously the USA isn’t enforcing its antitrust laws.

      MDN readers should know that the EU Parliament will select new commissioners, which as always are nominated by the member nations. In Denmark, with a different political party in power now, makes it highly unlikely that Vestager would remain in her current role, just as every US administration typically nominates and/or appoints its own ministers with each party flip.

      As successful as she has been in monopoly busting and enforcing fair market competition, however, it’s very likely she could be destined for higher office. I predict that if she is not nominated to an even greater EU office, she may very well be the next Prime Minister for Denmark.

      So sorry to MDN if she exposed Apple’s sweetheart Irish tax haven deal that no other companies got.

      1. Need an editor. Bumbling second paragraph should read Thorning-Schmidt NOMINATED Vestager, who was duly approved by parliamentary vote. In other words, a republic, just like the US.

  4. Congratulations are in order to Vestager, who has been appointed the European Commission’s executive VP for digital business, with the goal of harmonizing things like privacy regulation and of course going to battle against the international tax cheats who flaunt laws because they claim to be multinational firms with zero physical assets (Google, Facebook, Twitter) and yet somehow have wedged their way into monopolitzation of much data flow . Now that US tech companies are now pivoting to becoming banks, wise regulation is absolutely needed. Too bad the current US administration is deaf dumb and blind to the power abuses by Sillycon Valley firms.

    https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/10/margrethe-vestagers-vast-new-powers-1719378

    Ironically, Trump is busy on social media accepting the resignation of his 3rd national security advisor and attacking the Fed. Would an adult please confiscate the manchild’s electronic passifier?

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