“I’m quite enthusiastic about any kind of gadget and app and feature and things that enable me to have a very convenient lifestyle. We buy our groceries on the Internet; I buy furniture, clothes for myself and my kids.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“It’s not in my mission to work against Euroskepticism; it’s my mission to work for fair markets. In antitrust, what is at stake is, in some ways, as old as Adam and Eve because it is about greed, to get more.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“You have to teach your algorithm what it can do and what it cannot do because, otherwise, there is a risk that the algorithms will learn the tricks of the old cartels.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“A woman who wants to go places needs to bring her own ladder.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“If I had a motto, it would be, ‘Believe in God, fear the church’.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I know what I need. I don’t want people to tell me what I need.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I think it’s a completely good thing to want to do business, to want to make money and be a success in the marketplace, to get the attention of customers. I’m not in the business of pointing fingers or blaming companies, but there is a limit to everything.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I get all my U.S. politics from ‘The Daily Show.’”
― Margrethe Vestager
“What I have come to realize over the twenty years when I have worked in different roles as a legislator is that no legislation is as good as the enforcement of it.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I do not have an issue with specific countries or companies; what I’m interested in are schemes which allow for preferential treatment, for selectivity… If this has to change, it’s countries that will have to change this.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Being a politician, I know how motivating it can be when the public is outraged.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“It’s my impression that investment in Europe is done for the right reasons. Europe is a very good place to do business; it’s a large market.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I think a lot can be said for consolidation, but I think it should be done for the right reasons.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I think it is one of the fundamentals, not only of the European Union but also of free trade, that competition is fair.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“When we do merger rulings, we have strict deadlines: 25 days. It is extremely intensive, and you must decide how you can do it before your spouse says, ‘You know I still love you, but please spend some more time at home.’”
― Margrethe Vestager
“My parents didn’t do office hours, and they did not do vacations, so if you had a problem, you could always come around. I watched them and thought, ‘OK, this is what you are supposed to do.’ I was very engaged in my local primary school and when I went to secondary school and to university. And one thing led to another, and here I am.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“History shows the power-grab in every religion once it gets organised. And then it’s people making you do things that you don’t agree with and setting the rules. But it does mean something to me to believe that we are not alone – the human animal is quite a scary thing, left on its own.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“On Amazon, you find retailers that want Amazon to do part of their services. Those, you don’t find to the same degree on Google Shopping. On Google Shopping, you find sort of the bigger brands, those who want to have the customer relationship themselves – the data, the payment details, the search patterns.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Part of being not only a liberal but also a human is to make your own decisions.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Technology is, in many respects, an enabler for an open, transparent society. But it’s also an enabler for supervision to a completely unforeseen degree. And for commercialising personal space to an unforeseen degree.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Dominant companies can’t abuse their position to create advantage in related markets.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“We want a free market, but we know that the paradox of a ‘free’ market is that sometimes you have to intervene. You have to make sure it’s not the law of the jungle but the laws of democracy that works.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“We have to take our democracy back. We cannot leave it to Facebook or Snapchat or anyone else. We have to take democracy back and renew it. Society is about people and not about technology.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“If you’re successful in the market, it should be because you have the best products. Then your customers like you, not because then you cut corners, or you get a tax break, or you don’t inform authorities about how things actually are.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Competition is one of the most important drivers of innovation because you have to stay in the race. You have to think of something new, and if you don’t, well, of course you should leave the market.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I have a very strong tool in competitional enforcement: To do merger control, to look into cartels, misuse of dominant position – when member states hand out favors, for instance, in terms of tax breaks. But even though that’s a strong tool, it cannot solve everything.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I think I am like anyone else. I respect other people and, of course, I expect that it works the other way around.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I remember when I cut my hair. I used to have hair to my shoulders. Immediately, people said, ‘Oh, but that’s the power cut. Now she looks like a man.’”
― Margrethe Vestager
“The list of plane reservations I keep on my phone – it’s very, very, very long.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Planning is like taking on blinders. I think it is a wise thing to be open to whatever shows up on your doorstep.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Basically, I come to Washington a couple of times a year, sort of on a strictly business basis: talk to my counterparts at the Federal Trade Commission, of the DOJ, give an occasional talk, very often in a lawyer or academic environment.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“When I was very young, I took no interest in party politics. My line of interest was how can you be part of an influence to the society that you live in.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Where I grew up, it was a very open home.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“In Europe, we have three tools when it comes to fair competition. One is antitrust, one is merger control, and the third is state aid control. And the third you don’t have in the States.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I was brought up with a very strong value that you should always protect the small and the few against those who want to misuse their muscle and weight in order to get what they weren’t supposed to.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“If you, as a company, can get a deal that I, as a company, cannot get, you can compete with me but not on the merits, because your tax burden is not the same as mine.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Elephants are social, thoughtful animals. They live in communities and – I have to say it – in matriarchal societies. They bear no grudge, but they remember well.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Consumers depend on us to make sure that competition is fair and open, and it’s my responsibility to make that happen.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“A huge part of Apple profits generated in Europe, in African countries, Middle East, and India were all booked in Ireland. And I think it is a very basic principle in taxation that your profits are taxed where the profits are generated.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“The benefits of globalization do not trickle down automatically. It takes politics to make sure that there is a benefit.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Few people think about politics every day. But they are in the market every day.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“In Europe, we would congratulate anyone who is successful. But congratulations stop if we find that you start to misuse a dominant position.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“If you’re in a situation where your effective tax rate is so much lower than any other company, then obviously you have a much better position when it comes to compete on prices and everything else.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I think any company should compete on the quality of their products, their prices, the novelty they can produce, their services, because that would be fair competition.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“To me, a tax heaven is where everyone pays their fair share. In that respect, I am not quite sure we are in tax heaven yet.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“If you want things done, you need to be able to find solutions.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Most politicians are either generalists or specialists. It’s very rare that a politician is both.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“When I was very young and came into politics, I basically thought ideas would do the trick.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“No government can give a selective advantage to a specific company, because that would make competition unfair.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“It is very important, to have a robust digital economy, that the citizens regain the trust in how their data are being processed and who can access them.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I’ve asked myself what is the worst thing that can happen if I take this decision and go along with it. Very often, I find that the worst thing that can happen is something that I can live with. And if that’s the case, I will do it.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Very often, I think about the people that I represent. I meet people who have thousands and thousands of employees and millions and millions of customers – and also make a lot of money. But I think about the millions of Europeans that I represent in order to try to balance that so we can meet on more equal terms.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“You need to have the advice from experienced people coming from different kinds of educational and backgrounds in general, and then you can make a decision. But you need people around you that you trust to give you advice, and you need to make sure that the facts of the case are presented.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“You can be big, and you can be successful, but you cannot abuse your power to stop others from challenging you from being the next big thing in five or ten years.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“Ours was a never a ‘religious’ religious home because my parents thought of religion as something you do: it’s the way you engage in the local community. That has meant a lot to me.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I have learned that European politics is very much like Danish politics. You have all the rumours.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“We would completely delegitimise what we are doing if we allow politics to interfere with our work.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I don’t think much about politics as such because it has no room in our working processes. Eventually, our cases will have to stand up in court. And court will hear nothing about politics.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“In Europe, we don’t only take offence when one company is treating another company in a way that’s illegal. We also look at if governments are joining up with companies that makes it more difficult for other companies. We also see that sometimes government actions can make it very difficult for businesses to compete on their merits.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“I’m definitely a techno-optimist. I think we can do amazing things. But in my experience, if a thing has great potential, there is also a risk of great downsides, so to speak. Coming from a truly, really enthusiastic ‘wow decade,’ we are now moving into waters where we are somewhat more cautious.”
― Margrethe Vestager
“When a government gives special tax treatment to a few companies, that makes it hard for anyone else to compete on equal terms.”
― Margrethe Vestager
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