According to the Financial Times, Margrethe Vestager has warned national capitals to be “aware of the consequences” of watering down merger rules, saying such a move would amount to a “strategic choice” to change Europe’s economic model.
“We have a lot of state intervention in our economy but basically it is a very strategic choice to have fair competition — and you can see that it bites,” said Ms Vestager in an interview with the Financial Times in Brussels.
Ms Vestager, one of the star performers of the Commission and deemed a potential future president, agreed the time was right to have “a more nuanced and more pragmatic approach” to competition policy. Data were becoming increasingly important to the global economy, she said. Meanwhile, with the rise of Chinese state capitalism and US protectionism, it was “more and more obvious” that the openness of European markets was “an asymmetrical thing.”
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