Speech by Commissioner Margrethe Vestager,
Opening of the Jean Monnet Chair of the University of Lisbon,
7 November 2018
"The Chair takes the name of one of Europe's founding fathers. And it is largely thanks to Jean Monnet that we are here today talking about EU competition law, because he played a key role in its creation. [..] He saw clearly that the integration of markets would only succeed if competition was not distorted by companies or governments. He was convinced that consumers would not be able to enjoy the benefits of the future European Community unless discriminatory and anticompetitive arrangements were banned."

These two cases concern the implementation of remedies in the merger between Telefónica Deutschland and E-Plus that had been cleared in summer 2014. The applicants claimed that the Commission incorrectly interpreted the scope of Telefónica's obligations under these commitments and sought the Court to annul emails of the competent director and of a case handler in DG COMP conveying such interpretation to the applicants. The Commission welcomes the Court's clarifications that the contested emails do not constitute a decision by the Commission and that they are therefore not subject to review at the instance of the recipient of the emails.
T-884/16 Multiconnect T-885/16 Mass Response

Speech by Commissioner Margrethe Vestager,
Terra Nova 10th Anniversary Debate,
Paris, 3 October 2018
"[..] We’ve faced bigger problems in the past, and overcome them, and made Europe the best place to live in history. But that’s only happened because of our values – our democracy and solidarity, our individual rights and our openness to cooperation.
So our first job is to fight for those values. Not just by telling people that a Europe of values is the best protection they and their children can have. It means showing them. It means listening to the worries that keep Europeans awake at night. And it means going into those elections offering real solutions, that can make those people’s lives better."

Speech by Commissioner Margrethe Vestager,
Global Antitrust Enforcement Symposium,
Georgetown Law School, 25 September 2018

On 17 January 2019, Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, will host a one-day conference in Brussels on 'Shaping competition policy in the era of digitisation'. In this context, the Commission is seeking feedback from stakeholders who are involved in or affected by the digitisation of the economy. These contributions will serve to inform and feed into the discussions at the conference, which will also feature a keynote speech by Nobel prize winner Professor Jean Tirole. The conference will include three panel discussions, each chaired by one of the Commissioner's special advisers, Professors Heike Schweitzer and Jacques Crémer, and Assistant Professor Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye. As announced in March 2018 the special advisers are working on a report on the future challenges of digitisation for competition policy. The conference and the report are designed to provide input to the Commission's ongoing reflection on how competition policy can best serve European consumers in a fast-changing world and to identify the key upcoming digital challenges and their implications for competition policy.

Speech by Commissioner Margrethe Vestager,
CEPS Corporate Breakfast,
Brussels, 10 September 2018,
"Because when technology moves fast, we need to move fast too. We need to be sure these developing markets move in the right direction in their formative years. So that they end up giving European consumers the very best of what technology can offer them"

Spreech by Commissioner Margrethe Vestager
Copenhagen Business School,
3 September 2018

"I believe that companies, and individual business people, have a responsibility to foster trust in the markets – trust in a system that works for all - by playing by the rules when they do business in the EU."

Speech by Commissioner Margrehte Vestager
Bruegel Annual Meeting,
Brussels, 3 September 2018
"People [..] need to know that democratic, liberal politics – undramatic as it may seem, compared with the promises of authoritarians – is the tortoise that has won the race, over and over, to make our lives healthier and happier and richer. So we can win their support to do it again."

We would be happy to explain our work and its relevance to your organisation. Please email comp-talking-competition@ec.europa.eu if you wish to invite an expert from DG Competition to speak at a conference, seminar or other event you are planning. Kindly specify in your message your event's programme and audience.
Please understand we will not be able to accept all invitations.

Speech by Commissioner Margrethe Vestager,
NorWHO, Copenhagen,
20 August 2018

"Our role is to ensure that the market works. For me this fits with the vision of the three founding doctors of the WHO.[..] Competition rules are about making life better for consumers. So that when they spend their hard-earned money, they get a fair deal."

This issue of the merger brief covers the Qualcomm/NXP, Essilor/Luxottica, Lufthansa/Air Berlin and Altice/PT Portugal cases.

The Commission welcomes the 15 judgments from the General Court in the Power Cables cartel case. In today's judgements, the General Court dismisses all actions brought by the participants to the cartel in their entirety. The fines of over €300 million which the Commission had imposed on the main European and Asian producers of (extra) high voltage power cables for their participation in a worldwide cartel have been fully confirmed. The Commission welcomes in particular those judgements which approve the practice of continued inspections on Commission premises. The Commission also welcomes the judgments of the General Court which treat institutional investors like other corporate parents, by attributing parental liability to them in the same way.

CURIA website to retrieve the cases

Statement by Commissioner Margrethe Vestager,
European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE),
Brussels, 09 July 2018
"Europe has strong legs to stand on in the world. More people in the EU have jobs than ever before. Of the twenty most innovative countries in the world, ten are European. Together, we must keep that momentum.Competition policy will do its bit. I look forward to the debate."

The European Commission creates an expert group on licensing and valuation of standard essential patents (SEPs) and has recently launched a call for applications to join this group.

For the next long-term EU budget 2021-2027, the Commission is proposing a new, dedicated €4 billion programme to empower and protect consumers and enable Europe's many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to take full advantage of a well-functioning Single Market.

For the next long-term EU budget 2021-2027, the Commission proposes to create the InvestEU Programme, bringing EU budget financing in the form of loans and guarantees under one roof.

Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, and Chairwoman Alejandra Palacios of Mexico's competition authority COFECE have signed a cooperation arrangement in Brussels between the two competition authorities.

Speech by
Commissioner Margrethe Vestager
Brain Bar event
Budapest, 1 June 2018

The Commissioner gave a speech entitled 'When technology serves people' this morning at the Brain Bar 2018 event in Budapest. In it she referenced, among others, the movie Blade Runner and the recent viral 'Yanny and Laurel' clip. On the latter she said that the clip challenged the most basic belief we need to live together in society: That we all hear and see the same things. In an entertaining and thought-provoking speech the Commissioner covered areas such as meeting the challenges of new technology, data privacy and GDPR, Google, algorithms and democracy. She concluded by saying that our fundamental values are at stake.

The Commission takes note of the clarifications brought by the Court's judgment regarding the EU Merger rules on early implementation of concentrations before notification and clearance – so-called “gun-jumping”. The Court's judgment was rendered in response to a request for a preliminary ruling, issued by a Danish court on a merger investigated by the Danish competition authority.
The judgment provides guidance on the legal test for gun-jumping. It concludes that a concentration is implemented by a transaction which "in whole or in part, in fact or in law, contributes to the change in control of the target undertaking". The Court confirms that partial implementation of a concentration also constitutes gun jumping.

The Commission welcomes today's judgement of the General Court confirming the Commission's decision, and finding in particular that the Commission did not breach the general principle of equal treatment when it required the Netherlands to subject its ports to corporate tax as of 1 January 2017.
In particular, the General Court confirmed in full that the Commission can challenge State aid in one Member State although other possible State aid measures apply in other Member States.
More generally, today's judgement is relevant for other State aid cases where the Commission, in the light of the information it has and the identified competition issues, deals with similar State aid issues in different Member States within different time-frames.