Margrethe Vestager


Margrethe Vestager is a Danish social liberal politician serving in the Von der Leyen Commission as Executive Vice President of the European Commission for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age since 1 December 2019 and European Commissioner for Competition since 2014.
Vestager was a member of the Folketing from 20 November 2001 until 2 September 2014, representing the Danish Social Liberal Party. She was the political leader of her party from 2007 to 2014, and served as Minister of Economic Affairs and the Interior from 2011 to 2014. She has been described as "the rich world’s most powerful trustbuster".

Early life and education

Vestager was born in Glostrup, Zealand, a daughter of Lutheran ministers Hans Vestager and Bodil Tybjerg. She matriculated from Varde Upper Secondary school in 1986. She studied at the University of Copenhagen, graduating in 1993 with a degree in Economics. Vestager speaks Danish, English and some French.

Political career

Vestager has been a professional politician since the age of 21, when she was appointed to the central board and executive committee of the SLP and its European Affairs Committee, and shortly afterwards as National Chairwoman of the Party.
In 2001, Vestager was elected to the Danish Parliament, becoming Chairwoman of its Parliamentary Group in 2007. She was appointed Minister of Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs in 1998.
On 15 June 2007 Vestager secured election as her Party's parliamentary group leader in the Folketing, replacing Marianne Jelved. When Denmark's Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen called an early election in 2011 after failing to secure majority lawmaker backing for his economic stimulus package, Vestager's Social Liberals and the Conservative People's Party formed a political alliance, pledging to work together no matter which political bloc would win the election.

Minister for Economic and Interior Affairs of Denmark, 2011–2014

From 2011 until 2014 Vestager served as Minister for Economic and Interior Affairs in the three-party Social Democrat-led coalition government of Helle Thorning-Schmidt. Having forced through deep cuts in unemployment benefits of Denmark's generous social welfare system after the country's economy narrowly escaped recession in 2012, she was at one point considered by Danish media and pollsters as the most powerful person in government, even above Thorning-Schmidt.
In her time in office, chaired the meetings of economic and finance ministers of the European Union during Denmark's presidency of the Council of Ministers in 2012. In this capacity, she announced that the European Union would cede two of its seats on the board of the International Monetary Fund to emerging economies under a new power-sharing scheme for international financial institutions. She also worked closely with Jean-Claude Juncker to salvage Europe's financial sector and forge a European Banking Union.
Between 2011 and 2014, Vestager led Denmark's campaign against Basel III liquidity rules, arguing in favor of allowing banks to use 75 percent more in covered bonds to fill liquidity buffers than allowed under Basel III rules; at the time Denmark's $550 billion mortgage-backed covered bond market, part of the country's two-century-old mortgage system, was the world's largest per capita. In 2013 she ruled out slowing down steps toward stricter requirements for systemically important lenders and reiterated her stance that banks won't get tax breaks to help them through the transition caused by regulatory reform.
In May 2014, Vestager presented a growth package designed to drag Denmark's economy – at the time Scandinavia's weakest – out of its crisis, raising the country's structural output by 6 billion kroner and cut costs for companies by 4 billion kroner in 2020 through 89 measures to improve the business climate and boost employment.

European Commissioner for Competition, 2014–2019

On 31 August 2014, Prime Minister Thorning-Schmidt nominated Vestager as Denmark's EU Commissioner in the Juncker Commission. Despite her repeated denials of campaigning for the Environment portfolio, eventually she was designated the Competition dossier in the Juncker Commission. On 3 October 2014, she won the European Parliament's backing following her confirmation hearing.
In her confirmation hearings, Vestager said she favored settlement of cases before they come to a final executive judgment, for reduced fines or negotiated concessions from the companies.
Like her predecessor, Joaquín Almunia, Vestager has since been focusing on state aid cases. Within a few months in the office, she brought antitrust charges against Google; Almunia had initially opened the investigation into Google in 2010, and had reached a settlement deal with Google by 2014 but was unable to convince the European Commission to accept it before his term ended. Vestager inherited Almunia's case but has shown greater desire to continue pursuing Google/Alphabet over the alleged antitrust violations. Also, she initiated investigations into the tax affairs of Fiat, Starbucks, Amazon.com and Apple Inc. under competition rules. In 2014, she launched proceedings against Gazprom, one of Europe's main gas suppliers, over allegations of breaching EU antitrust rules by putting in place artificial barriers to trade with eight European countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria.
In January 2015, Vestager ordered Cyprus Airways to pay back over 65 million euros in illegal state aid received in 2012 and 2013 as part of a restructuring package; as a consequence, Cyprus suspended operations at its flag carrier resulting in 550 job losses and reduced competition.
In August 2016, after a two–year investigation, Vestager announced Apple Inc. received illegal tax benefits from Ireland. The Commission ordered Apple to pay a fine of €13 billion, plus interest, in unpaid Irish taxes for 2004–2014; the largest tax fine in history. As a result of the EU investigation, Apple agreed to re-structure out of its 2004–2014 Irish BEPS tool, the Double Irish in Q1 2015; Apple's replacement Irish BEPS tool, the CAIA arrangement caused Irish 2015 GDP to rise by 34.4 per cent, and was labelled Leprechaun economics by Nobel Prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman in July 2016.
In July 2017, a fine of $2.7 billion against Alphabet was levied based on the European Commission claim that Google breached antitrust rules. This fine was later appealed.
In October 2017, Vestager ordered Amazon to pay €250 million of back taxes, and in January 2018, the EU Commission fined Qualcomm €997 million for allegedly abusing its market dominance on LTE baseband chipsets.
In July 2018, she fined Alphabet €4.3 billion for entrenching its dominance in internet search by illegally tying together their service and other mobile apps with Android. On 22 January 2019 she fined Mastercard €570 million for preventing European retailers from shopping around for better payment terms. In March 2019, Vestager ordered Google to pay a fine €1.49 billion for abusive practices in online advertising. Vestager's work as competition commissioner received criticism from US President Donald Trump, stating "She hates the United States, perhaps worse than any person I’ve ever met."

Executive Vice President of the European Commission for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age, 2019–present

Following the 2019 European Parliament election, Vestager was proposed as President of the European Commission. In June 2019, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen proposed that Vestager continue as Denmark's Commissioner for another five years. While, initially thought to become First Vice-President, Ursula von der Leyen has since proposed that Vestager, Frans Timmermans and Valdis Dombrovskis all serve as Executive Vice-Presidents of the Commission with Vestager having responsibility for a "Europe fit for the Digital Age".

Other activities

Corporate boards

In 2013, Vestager held that “ our experience it’s impossible to pursue Danish interests without being close to the core of Europe. You don’t have influence or produce results if you’re standing on the sideline.”

Personal life

Vestager's husband is a gymnasium maths-and-philosophy teacher. They have three daughters, Maria, Rebecca, and Ella. Vestager served as an inspiration for the main character in Borgen, who tries to juggle family life and politics.